Q&M: Dentists on the COVID-19 Frontline

After seeing all these workers, to me, this is a necessity. It was important that we go in and test these workers because they are the core to our construction sites and developing Singapore. What I liked to see when I was working at the frontlines is how different agencies have actually all chipped in. Nobody complained -- the SAF guys, they don’t take a break, they work every day. Our nurses, our doctors, our volunteers, as well. It could be a public holiday and we’d still have a full sign-up list.

I think the challenge would be the different locations, like what Fay had said. We do government quarantine facilities, which are mainly chalets, hotels. And then we’ve also gone into the factory-converted dorms, which are all construction sites. So they both pose a different (set of) challenges, and we only know what we’re up against when we reach there in the morning before we set up. Sometimes there are some chalets --- when we go we don’t even have an area to do proper swabs and do the packing.

I think I share the sentiments of everyone. We all want to help, and when given the opportunity, we were ready to go, we have so many volunteers who have signed up under Q&M that every day when there’s a task we have more than enough for the numbers required. But at the end of the day when you finish and you go back, just before you step into your home, there’s always this thing at the back of your mind. You know, you want to be safe, the people have to be safe -- your loved ones have to be safe, so I think that’s very important. So to me, it’s a fine balance.

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.

I think that when we go down we are very happy to see that we’re not the only ones there. Ministry of Manpower has also sent people in, the Singapore Armed Forces have got people in, so there’s actually a good team that’s been set up. And we work well (together). Q&M works well with these two agencies and we’re able to execute our job, (do) what’s needed, and at the same time maintain the integrity of the infected area so that we don’t bring things in or take anything out.

I think it all started in February when we saw that the numbers were still quite low, but then it started to spike and we all heard that we didn’t want the frontline to be swarmed, for the hospitals to be swarmed. That’s why as dentists we’re actually well-positioned to go in. We have a lot of experience with PPEs and infection control and all that. So we thought that we'd be best to go in and help out, and so that’s why we mobilised the team and we were lucky that we were able to go in early because we’ve done quite a bit already since.