1 Healthcare System, 2 Narratives
The Straits Times waxed lyrical about our healthcare system in a piece dated 29 January 2022. Amongst other things, the article asserted that “hospitals on the ground are coping well” and “staff are encouraged to take leave“.
As Izzah points out, the article did not quote any junior doctors or nurses, but only official spokespersons and high-ranking officials.
A few days before the Straits Times article was published, Wake Up Singapore wrote an article about how Nurses were at their wit’s end. We quoted extensively from frontline nurses and doctors on the ground. We drew attention to a desperate and heart-breaking open letter that urged MOH to alleviate the plight of healthcare workers by stopping leave restrictions. In fact, we even took pains to point out that, if one wants to get a complete picture of the situation on the ground, look at the testimonies of healthcare workers on social media pages in addition to official statements.
If you are serious about representing the situation holistically, then you must feature sources from the front-lines.
In any event, the picture painted by the ST article does not appear to be entirely consistent with what the Director of Medical Services, Dr Kenneth Mak, said on 21 January about how leave restrictions may need to be imposed if there is a surge of cases.
“Is this a joke?!”
Doctors and Nurses on the ground were surprised (we’re putting it mildly here) to read the article. For many of them, it came as news that they could take leave and that all was well. We set out below a sampling of comments from doctors and nurses.
We begin with a shoutout from a frontline worker Bernadette who gave a special shoutout to Salma. Bernadette noted that, it was only 8.5 hours into her shift that she finally had time to have her dinner, take a sip, clear her bladder, and rest her legs. Her message to Salma, ST’s senior health correspondent, wasn’t as eloquent as the carefully worded statements of hospital management but one that cuts to the chase – “We ain’t coping well”.
Updatemeprn, an Instagram Page that doctors often confide in, half-jokingly compared the assertion that “taking leave was encouraged” to a phishing scam.
As mentioned in our previous article, many healthcare workers shared that there were already some form of leave restrictions in place due to manpower constraints. Further, it was also common for leaves to be cancelled as personnel are called back to work. As such, many try not to make elaborate plans on their days off.
Dr Jade Kua, a pediatric emergency specialist, said that the article invalidates the feelings of healthcare workers who may not be coping.
Dr Kua also crowd-sourced views on what exactly “coping well” or “major impact on staffing meant. She shared a compilation of responses below. As the text is small, we will reproduce it here:
This was hard to collate answers for. We’ve had mass resignations, clear calls for help on social media from many juniours, divorce, increase in MC because taking leave was frozen… what more would it take to show major impact at the staff level? I thank you for sharing your answers.
Many healthcare workers on r/Singapore took umbrage at the article. The top comment called the piece “absolute bullshit propaganda“.
The fact that there are already leave restrictions imposed seemed to be a common thread in the comments section. For many, this rosy picture painted by ST was a far cry from what they experience on the ground.
One netizen pointed out that his wife, unlike almost everyone else in the forum, had not much issue taking leaves. A frontliner from Singhealth responded by saying that not every department may have staffing issues, but “coping” may not be the most choice term to describe the situation.
On Twitter, the sentiments were no different as a quick glance of all the quote tweets to the article reveal that the nurses themselves are surprised by its contents.
HUH?! SINCE WHEN?! https://t.co/bxNZxVfsKZ
— Darshini (@DarshiniPiggy) January 29, 2022
KTPH praised for honesty
In the ST article, only Khoo Teck Phuat said that it was running at nearly full capacity. As a result, it has been deferring non-elective surgeries.
Dr Saravanan, a doctor from KTPH, praised the hospital’s media liasion team for “being transparent about the tight circumstances we are working under. He added that he does not “get what’s the point of painting a picture of “everything’s going fine” when it actually is not. Who are we trying to please?”
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