SG Healthcare Corps expanded to include non-healthcare professionals
The SG Healthcare Corps will be expanded to include non-healthcare professionals, as Singapore ramps up manpower to support healthcare facilities set up for Covid-19.
Launched earlier this month, the SG Healthcare Corps calls upon former and current healthcare professionals to be on standby to support healthcare workers in the fight against Covid-19.
The Ministry of Health's director of medical services, Kenneth Mak, said at a press briefing yesterday: "In addition to providing additional bed capacity and making sure we properly equip them, there was also a need to raise additional manpower to support all the expanded healthcare facilities we have created and provided."
So far, about 3,000 healthcare professionals across all ages and job groups have signed up, including those from the private sector.
Professor Mak said training will be provided for volunteers so that they can take on their roles competently. Some of the roles include being part of swab testing teams that support the medical teams in dormitories.
He said the ministry will try to match the volunteers' skill sets with the needs on the ground whenever possible and revealed that quite a number of dentists have stepped forward to offer their services.
Professor Mak said: "It's not that we need to perform dental check-ups for the foreign workers in the dormitories.
"But dentists are well trained to use personal protective equipment, they are very competent in infection control measures, and many of them, in fact, may be deployed in swab testing teams."
For non-healthcare workers, they may be tasked to do back-end, administrative and support roles to allow healthcare professionals doing those jobs to be redeployed on the front line.
Permanent Secretary for Health Ng How Yue said at the briefing: "We appreciate all these contributions... Some of them have worked round the clock, and it is through these combined efforts that we can manage to take care of our patients promptly and appropriately in a sustainable way."
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