Coronavirus: 100 SAF soldiers deployed at Expo care facility

Private Terrenjit Gill was excited when he found out that he would be deployed to the Singapore Expo to care for Covid-19 patients. This was an opportunity to put his training as a Singapore Armed Forces medic to good use.

The full-time national serviceman, who enlisted last July, underwent a two-day refresher course on the use of personal protective equipment.

"I felt this would be a really good experience - this is what national service is about. As a medic, this is where I can practise what I've learnt and put it to good use in a real-life scenario," said Private Gill, 19, who will be studying medicine overseas after his national service.

He is among about 100 soldiers from the SAF Medical Corps deployed at the Expo community care facility since April 22, looking after some 1,800 Covid-19 patients.

Six Expo halls have been converted for Covid-19 patients and SAF servicemen are in charge of two of them. Staff from Parkway Pantai and Woodlands Health Campus are taking care of the patients in the other four halls.

Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen, who was at the Singapore Expo yesterday, spoke about the need to be constantly vigilant as he visited the SAF deployment. "Thankfully, so far despite a number of weeks in which we've been dealing with infected or potentially infected patients, the SAF personnel have kept well," he said.

"We'll constantly remind them to be vigilant, but yes personal safety is always a concern. This is a sacrifice, but it's a sacrifice that we all have to make," he told reporters. "I think it's very important because if we take care of the patients in these community care facilities, it will give our hospitals a lot of space to take care of other patients... So we want to make sure that we continue to get the hospitals to also continue with their core functions," he added.

He disclosed that there were currently about 2,000 personnel from across the SAF involved in the national effort to combat the coronavirus, including in contact tracing operations and at foreign worker dormitories.

Community care facilities like the Expo are meant for Covid-19 patients with relatively mild or no symptoms and do not require extensive medical intervention. Most patients fall into this category.

Senior Lieutenant-Colonel Daryl Tam, 47, who commands the SAF task force at Singapore Expo, said morale among the men was high. "When I ask the guys on the ground, they feel engaged and fulfilled, and they want to do their part for the nation."