ESSENTIAL WORKERS - OUR UNSUNG HEROES
Stepping up to help at screening centre National Day 2020
As most of us rest and celebrate, there are those on the front line holding the fort, and who keep Singapore going. Here are their stories.
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Ms Maryann Sheila raising the Tan Tock Seng Hospital flag during a rehearsal on Thursday for the National Day Anthem moment ceremony.
ST PHOTO: GIN TAY
When Covid-19 struck, 46-year-old Maryann Sheila - a front-line registration worker at an orthopaedic clinic in Tan Tock Seng Hospital (TTSH) - rose to the occasion.
She volunteered to switch jobs and register people who had to be swabbed for Covid-19 at the National Centre for Infectious Diseases (NCID) screening centre.
This meant irregular working hours and more hectic shifts, but Ms Sheila, who took up the stint in February, remained unfazed.
"I had the full support of my family to step up and help amid the pandemic, and it was this which kept me going," says the mother of two sons, aged 23 and 11.
The peak of the outbreak in April sometimes saw over a hundred people in a single day queueing to be registered for their swab tests.
"It was important for us to work quickly and efficiently, to register their details and provide them with patient tags before they were handed over to nurses," says Ms Sheila, whose previous work involved registering patients as a senior patient service associate at TTSH's Orthopaedic Specialist Outpatient Clinic. She joined two years ago.
For her efforts on the front line, she will be taking part in the National Day celebrations by attending the Anthem moment ceremony at TTSH to mark the efforts of healthcare workers. During the ceremony, she will raise the hospital's flag.
"Traditionally, I've always spent National Day at home with my family where we watch the parade live together, but this year, I'm honoured to be representing Tan Tock Seng Hospital," says Ms Sheila.
On her NCID work, she says that patients would sometimes arrive in a worried or jittery state, and she would step in to reassure them.
"Many of the foreign workers are often extremely worried about the communication barriers. I remembered one was very anxious because he was so worried that he might have contracted the virus and wanted to contact his family," she adds.
"In times like these, it's important to calm them down and let them have their moment, because it brings them a great deal of comfort and it can really make a difference."
