SingHealth starts pool of staff ready for overseas humanitarian crises

PUBLIC health group Singapore Healthcare Services (SingHealth) has started a programme to manage overseas relief efforts by its staff.

The SingHealth Humanitarian Relief Programme will draw from the group’s hospitals, polyclinics and specialist centres to create a ready pool of health-care volunteers which relief organisations can tap during  humanitarian crises.

This will make it easier for such organisations to rope in health-care volunteers to provide vital medical services not just during crises, but also during the recovery phase that follows.

Dr Mark Leong, who heads the new programme and Singapore General Hospital’s department of emergency medicine, said: “Most relief efforts help disaster victims cope with the immediate effects of a disaster, such as the treatment of injuries sustained and the provision of basic shelter and necessities.

“We are now able to also match these volunteers to longer-term projects, mostly in helping to rebuild the lives of our neighbours affected by disasters.”

He hopes the programme will help volunteers reach out to more relief groups.

The programme currently partners Mercy Relief and the Singapore Red Cross Society, groups which SingHealth volunteers have worked with in relief efforts during disasters such as the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami and last year’s flash floods in Yemen.

It has a pool of 90 volunteers comprising doctors, nurses and allied health professionals. One of them is Dr Arif Tyebally, who led the medical team in Singapore’s effort to provide assistance to cyclone-affected Myanmar last year.

He said: “Previous missions I’ve been on have all been acute disaster relief missions, so our preparation time was naturally short. The new programme is definitely a step in the right direction.”

It can recruit more volunteers and train them before any crises, so that when they are activated, they will be better prepared and equipped to handle the challenges on the ground, he said.

“Ultimately this translates into greater team morale and even better care for our patients at the disaster scene,” he added.