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.
