As the Omicron Variant spreads through the community, children are particularly affected, making up the majority of hospitalised cases.
And as always, elderly patients are also more susceptible to severe illness from Covid-19.
Hence, it’s timely that a new Covid-19 Treatment Facility (CTF) is now open at EXPO Hall 9.
It’ll cater to vulnerable patients, and 1 of the notable features is its family rooms for kids to stay with caregivers.
In a Facebook post, Health Minister Ong Ye Kung announced that the new CTF started operations on Monday (14 Feb).
It’s located at Hall 9, while Halls 7, 8 and 10 were done up earlier, he said.
However, unlike the other halls, the CTF at Hall 9 will be for the “most vulnerable in our community” – i.e. the very young and very old.
It will have about 600 beds for children and their caregivers – specifically 596.
The other 224 beds will be for the elderly.
Together with the beds in the other halls, EXPO now can house more than 2,500 beds, Minister Ong said.
This also makes the CTF at EXPO Singapore’s largest.
The Republic has about 4,500 beds in total located in CTFs, he added.
What’s special about the new CTF at EXPO Hall 9 is that it has family rooms.
This is so that infected children can move in together with their caregivers.
They’re important since Omicron “tends to affect children”, Minister Ong said.
As we’re seeing more children in hospital, at least now they can recover “peacefully and uneventfully” with a caregiver by their side, he added.
Apparently, these hotel-like family rooms come stocked with plushies and colouring pencils.
There’s even an exercise area next door.
Minister Ong also noted that the new facility makes good use of automation.
For example, TEMI Telepresence robots are used so doctors and nurses can conduct consultations over the screen instead of risking infection by doing so face-to-face.
There are also:
With the opening of the new CTF, Singapore seems to have succeeded in bumping up our healthcare capacity significantly, especially for child patients.
Thus, we should be more confident that Singapore can bear the current Omicron wave.
Kudos to all those involved in making this project come to fruition.
Hopefully, the day will come soon when such facilities won’t be needed any more.
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Featured image adapted from Ong Ye Kung on Facebook.
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