NUHS apologises after contact-centre number could not be used for 3 hours on Saturday , Latest Singapore News - The New Paper
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NUHS apologises after contact-centre number could not be used for 3 hours on Saturday

The National University Health System (NUHS) has apologised for a three-hour service disruption of its contact-centre number on Saturday morning, which affected all of its medical facilities that made use of the number.

The issue, which was detected at about 8.30am, stemmed from upgrading work done the night before. Full service was restored at about 11.30am.

While the contact-centre number had an outage, “calls to specific institutions or clinics were undisrupted and scheduled appointments were generally unaffected”, an NUHS spokesman told The Straits Times.

Contingency measures were activated immediately, with patients directed to use the OneNUHS app or send in e-mails through appointment@nuhs.edu.sg or contactus@nuhs.edu.sg

Assuring that patients’ care and safety are a top priority, the spokesman said: “We thank our patients for their understanding and apologise for any inconvenience caused during the temporary disruption.”

NUHS is monitoring the service closely and working with its vendor to prevent a reoccurrence.

In several Facebook posts on Saturday, various hospitals under NUHS said the 6908-2222 hotline was unable to receive calls.

The earliest post was put up by National University Hospital (NUH) at about 10.10am.

Checks on the NUHS website showed that 13 medical facilities use the affected hotline.

They include NUH, Ng Teng Fong General Hospital, Jurong Community Hospital, Alexandra Hospital, National University Heart Centre Singapore and Jurong Medical Centre.

Polyclinics under National University Polyclinics in Bukit Batok, Bukit Panjang, Choa Chu Kang, Clementi, Jurong, Pioneer and Queenstown were also affected.

When ST contacted the hotline initially during the outage, there was no dial tone.

During a subsequent check at noon, an automated voice gave instructions to press certain numbers depending on the specific queries the caller had.

National University HospitalSINGAPORE HOSPITALSAlexandra HospitalNg Teng Fong General HospitalPOLYCLINICS