Coronavirus: Supporting the front line

Ensuring flow of supplies to hands that heal

Storekeeper Nazarudi Mohd Abi wrapping supplies to prevent spillage during transportation. ST PHOTO: NG SOR LUAN
Storekeeper Nazarudi Mohd Abi wrapping supplies to prevent spillage during transportation. ST PHOTO: NG SOR LUAN

Tucked away in a basement at the National University Hospital (NUH) is a warehouse that stores more than 2,600 types of medical supplies and gowns for healthcare staff and patients.

The less visible materials management department has been more busy over the past seven months, delivering trolley loads of supplies to clinics and wards daily, and managing supply chain shocks.

Thousands of pieces of personal protective equipment were used by the hospital each day during the peak of the pandemic, almost three times their normal usage rate, said Mr Kenny Tang, 46, head of the department.

While grappling with higher demand, the department had to deal with export limitations as its suppliers abroad had to save resources for the use of their own countries.

To avoid a hospital-wide shortage of supplies, the team had to diversify their sourcing and also reach out to non-traditional sources such as a local corporate gift vendor, which helped the department obtain face shields from China.

With supply uncertainty, price increases for crucial items such as disposable pillow covers, bandages, dressing and alcohol swabs were unavoidable, said Mr Tang.

Managing more order requests from wards and making daily trips to more than 30 locations in the hospital became the norm for the department's storekeepers. Previously, they replenished supplies a few times a week.

Many of the 10 storekeepers are long-serving staff, and half of them are aged between 50 and 68. For each delivery, they had to lug heaps of heavy and bulky medical items on trolleys across the Kent Ridge grounds. "Leveraging technology is our biggest challenge, and it is still a manual process," said Mr Tang.

But from this weekend, the storekeepers' workload will be reduced by 20 per cent as the department switches to an electronic system to alert the team when supply in wards are running low. Mr Tang added: "Although we tend to be invisible, I always tell my team the role we play is meaningful because we fill the hands that heal."

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on August 24, 2020, with the headline Ensuring flow of supplies to hands that heal. Subscribe