What has been the most memorable experience working on the frontlines, at the COVID-19 quarantine zones?

I think when you talk about memorable experience, it’s the gratitude that you can see the foreign workers have given us. You know, when we go in they are all scared. They see these guys coming in with their full PPE suit and all that so they are all queuing, and they don’t know what’s happening. So you know, when we sit them down and we explain to them what we’re going to do, you can see that they’re always -- they feel very reassured. Because at least now they know that we’re coming to test them, if they are cleared then they can go on with their normal lives again. And all of them will say thank you sir, thank you this, thank you, and they leave. So that’s very reassuring because that means that we’re helping and we’re reaching out to the group that needs help, and to me that is gratitude by itself.

I think not just at the frontlines, but as Mohan said, the frontline when we reach there, right from the gate where the security guard is, everyone is just so happy that we’re there, you know? And the fear is palpable, you can see that when they get into the queues and sit down to wait for their turn, they’re very anxious. But by the time you’re done, they actually say a big thank you. What’s been memorable is being able to work internally to meet dentists from — you know Q&M is a very big group right? To be able to meet dentists from different clinics and different subsidiaries, to put it in perspective — it’s like different tellers at NTUC you know? Different cashiers. But someone in Bedok is able to meet someone in Hougang, able to meet someone in Choa Chu Kang. People like Siva from British Dental, Mohan from Bukit Gombak. I work with Fay, Dr. Tan Hwee Hiang, Dr. Huang Yee Cheau from TP Dental. That’s the nice part. And then last but not least, the integration with the SAF and the MOM teams, it was just fantastic. There’s no way we could have done it without them.

It’s absolutely like getting to finally see the colleagues that work under the same umbrella, in the same company because you don’t get to see them while they work in different offices. Normally they’re just a name on a chart.

There’s, of note actually, a smaller team that works 24/7. Part of it is Mohan, Alvin — Dr. Alvin Lee, Dave from HR, Dr. Yao Chao Shu. These people don’t sleep, and for us, we’re the ones that are at the frontlines swabbing. We turn up at 9 am and we get briefed by them. But what most people don’t know is from the night before, and the night before that, and the night before that, they have not slept. They have been preparing the PPE, they received a nominal roll of the foreign workers to be swabbed, they brainstorm -- you know initially all the labels were all handwritten and it was a very slow thing. But eventually, someone figured out how to merge the nominal roll onto stickers, print them out the night before, and now we’ve gotten to a point where SAF has provided scanners where they scan their IDs and they produce the stickers. And so, all these have been a tremendous amount of help because the moment you gown in the full suit of PPE, that’s it. The timer starts and you’re just melting in there. So a big thank you go out to these big administrative teams that work in the background.

It’s actually the sense of camaraderie, the purpose that we all have. You can feel that. Whenever we work in the morning before we go out, we can all feel that we’re all there for a reason. And then -- there’s not a large number of us actually, and then we see the same old faces, then we look at each other, then we just nod in greeting. But you never get to go with the same people twice, you see? So it’s a good chance to meet other dentists, that’s very memorable. But going to the dorms itself and seeing how they live and seeing what they are going through (the actual state), that’s also very memorable. Then we see for real what’s written in the papers, mentioned in the news, actually what’s happening on the ground in front of us. That’s very important.

As for wearing the full suit in Singapore's climate, it’s more like a sauna. A walking personal sauna. Because there are two layers, and both of them are impermeable, so it’s not breathable, they’re not supposed to be breathable -- the virus can get in, right? So it’s impermeable for a reason. And then we’re not supposed to be in an air-conditioned (room) because it’s recommended to be in an open space, where there’s the wind, right? So for all these reasons, we’re actually standing around in our own personal saunas, and then we can feel the sweat dripping, and I’m getting goosebumps right now. (We) can feel the sweat collecting inside our sleeves, you know? Then when we remove our gowns one by one we peel off the layers, we see the sweat and all our scrubs will be a darker blue in colour. Yeah, that’s very memorable definitely.

I think basically as everybody has highlighted, is the fact that we are doing it as a team, as a group, you know what I mean? Not just as single individuals. Personally, most memorable for me would be the heat. Damn bloody hot. Once you wear your full PPE, the white stuff, the yellow stuff, the goggles, the face shields, everything, it’s like a sauna. So the first time when we were given an area where we can take off our PPE after we finished swabbing, it’s like wow. Sweat was just dripping all over, so that was memorable. There was this nice puddle underneath me after that.

The full PPE suit is light in weight, but hot. And with your head covered, your face covered, then it’s fogging, so yeah it’s hot.

Like Badrun said, there’s a lot of camaraderies. We work together with like-minded colleagues. And then even behind the scenes, there’s a lot of brainstorming to find solutions to little problems and challenges that we face on-site, like labelling of the bottles… what else? Fadz, can you help out?

I think another aspect which is memorable, is also going to these sites, to ground zero, which are factory-converted dorms, construction sites, which you only read about in the papers usually. And so we’ve been to tyre factories, glass-making factories, landscape depots, HDB construction sites, all very interesting.