Facilitate safe access to COVID-19 Vaccines & Therapeutics

To ensure safe roll-out of COVID-19 vaccines and subsequently, oral anti-virals (OAV) in the polyclinics, Soo Chung and her team worked with the polyclinic teams and various stakeholders to plan the logistics for ordering of vaccines, storage requirements and monitoring of usage due to the short shelf life. The workflow for prescribing the OAV was developed collaboratively with the doctors and a hotline was also extended to participating general practitioners to help review their patients and answer enquiries regarding OAVs.

Making lives better…

Knowing that my efforts make lives better sustains me.
Working with committed people who care about others, inspires me.

Facilitate safe access to COVID-19 Vaccines & Therapeutics

Despite not having any prior exposure to aseptic techniques, Lea, a senior pharmacy technician at Institute of Mental Health, stepped forward to be trained to support the dilution of COVID-19 vaccines for hospital wide vaccination.

Delivering my highest standard…

In the beginning, I was struggling with the workflow and time management, due to the stability of the vaccine after dilution. Though it is challenging for me as it was my first time performing dilution using aseptic techniques, I made sure that I delivered my highest standard to ensure the safety of our patients.

Establish, review and refine treatment guidelines

As a member of the national COVID-19 Therapeutic Workgroup, Grace constantly reviewed existing and new scientific evidence to guide safe use of new therapeutics, bearing in mind the evolving variants and the availability of the COVID-19 therapeutics locally. The workgroup also provides professional opinion on stewardship of key COVID-19 therapeutics to conserve the limited supplies of these drugs.

Persevering despite the unknown…

The outpouring of kindness from food vendors who sponsored lunches, donation of care packs and handwritten love notes from the public provided much warmth especially during the toughest times and reminded me why I am still doing what I am doing.
It gave me strength to persevere despite not knowing when this pandemic will end or when will things at work improve.

Managing suspected and positive COVID-19 cases

Abigail, senior pharmacy technician, volunteered to be deployed to the Community Care Facilities (CCF) and dormitories where she ensured sufficient medication inventory and dispensing medications to those within the facilities and dorms.

Support from the public…

I was 11 when SARS happened, so I remembered how healthcare workers back then were being treated. When COVID-19 happened, I was really afraid of being humiliated and shunned by the public. But they have shown us otherwise. Even Grab had a pool of drivers who offered to fetch us to and from work – this was especially sweet.

Managing suspected and positive COVID-19 cases

Another pharmacy staff, Norjanah bravely volunteered to work in Ng Teng Fong General Hospital Emergency Department to counsel and dispense medications to suspected and positive COVID-19 patients.

The biggest challenge…

One of the biggest challenge was the language barrier with the foreign workers. Despite the difficulty, one of the foreign worker thanked me for my help and assurance. This made me realized how petrified he felt, being in a foreign country during pandemic and being uncertain of what is going to happen. This made me want to contribute more.

Managing suspected and positive COVID-19 cases

The initial months of COVID-19 was fraught with uncertainties and danger but our pharmacy staff demonstrated extraordinary courage by stepping forth to serve suspected and positive COVID-19 cases in our healthcare institutions, dormitories and community care facilities. As the Khoo Teck Puat Hospital A&E Pharmacy In-Charge, Ryan was involved in planning the A&E response to pandemic, such as planning workflows for discharge and inflight supply of medication to fever tent and holding areas.

Family support during difficult times…

On the first day of Chinese New Year in 2020, I had to meet up with the A&E Nursing team to discuss the medication supply for the fever tent. Hence, after visitation, my entire family, including my 90 year old grandmother sent me to work! My grandmother was excited to see the fever tents and cheerfully waved me goodbye! Despite the difficult times, I was glad to have my family’s support.

Ensuring continual access to medications & pharmacy services

With the Safe Management Measures in place during COVID-19, patients are advised to stay home and have their medications delivered. Our nimble pharmacy colleagues ramped up medication delivery services (MDS) by 4 times. At Singapore General Hospital (SGH), Zhi Yang and his team set up a triage model to screen patients for MDS eligibility by a pharmacist using a specific checklist in order to ramp up the SGH MDS.

Looking after our colleagues…

To minimize unnecessary contact and infection transmission between hospital staff and patients within the pharmacy and bring convenience to our fellow healthcare workers, we also setup a 24-hour secured medication locker service for all healthcare workers working within the Outram Campus to collect their medications.

Ensuring continual access to medications & pharmacy services

To relieve the hospital bed crunch for COVID-19 patients, the National University Hospital piloted its first COVID-19 virtual ward, which allowed stable patients requiring hospitalisation to be cared for remotely at home. Zhi Xin led the setup of guidelines for the administration and monitoring of COVID-19 therapeutics in home setting, medication review and delivery processes, as well as set up workflows for phone/video counselling.

Fulfilling last wishes…

There was a severely ill COVID-19 patient on controlled drugs, whose family would like her to pass on at home. However, the home palliative service could not take on COVID-19 patients, and there were no existing protocols then to allow such patients to be discharged. To fulfil the family’s wish, the virtual ward team worked to provide care, medication counselling and access to necessary medications. Her daughter was very grateful to our team for allowing the patient to pass on at home with dignity, as opposed to alone in an isolated ward.

Supporting the sharing of health data

Beyond the availing of COVID-19 vaccines, guidance on the inoculation process for patient safety, documentation, and subsequent sharing of immunisation records were critical enablers for Singapore to progressively open our economy and community through vaccination-differentiated safe management measures. Priscilla and her team at Integrated Health Information Services supported the iterative development and deployment of the IT solution for Singapore’s COVID-19 Vaccination Programme. Her role included adapting the solution to changes in the prevailing vaccination policies, reviewing healthcare providers’ operations and processes, as well as providing onsite tech assistance to their staff. She also implemented the Singapore Drug Dictionary as standardised vaccination codes across all required IT systems for data exchange, enabling deeper health insights. These efforts facilitate the sharing of health records and data between national IT systems to ensure that vaccination records are up to date for healthcare professionals to better manage their patients.

Working together…

The fact that it’s very heartening to see the whole of Singapore – public and private working in one accord, without divide and without hesitancy, towards making COVID-19 and vaccination operations a success

Educating and empowering patients

Recognizing that communication was key to medication adherence, Chwee Huat and his team at Alexandra Campus realized that overcoming the language barrier was important to support the teams at the dorms and community care facilities. They worked with volunteers to expand upon the existing translations that other clusters had kindly shared and translated materials such as pictogram labels and counselling placards into 9 different languages.

All hands on deck…

During this period we could witness the kindness, generosity and graciousness from our society and the world got smaller, including that of ex-healthcare professionals including ex-Pharmacists and Pharmacy Technicians. When we asked for help, we got it. Volunteers were more than ready to help in the Dorm Operations as well as the Community Care Facilities, this greatly alleviated the bottleneck in healthcare manpower resources.

Educating and empowering patients

At the start of the pandemic, there were a lot of unfounded rumors related to COVID-19. As the immediate past President, Pei Chean, led the Pharmaceutical Society of Singapore (PSS) to empower and educate the public on COVID-19 prevention and treatment. PSS pharmacists came together to create a hand hygiene and disinfectants guide, which was adopted by MOH as part of their COVID-19 resources. To continue engaging the public despite the pandemic, they pivoted the annual PSS Pharmacy Week carnival online to educate the public on topics such as medication taking tips and medication misinformation.

Thriving on the camaraderie…

The camaraderie spirit from everyone and people willing to step up despite short notice and high workload kept me motivated in doing what I am doing.