When you’re ill and have to be hospitalised, it’s understandable to want your friends and family to visit you to receive love and support.
Unfortunately, this will not be possible during the circuit breaker measures period which (hopefully!) ends on 4 May due to the coronavirus outbreak.
Hospitals Would Not Allow Visitors During Circuit Breaker Period Except for Some Special Cases
Beginning 7 April, the majority of patients in Singapore’s hospitals have not been allowed to have any visitors until 4 May.
This is part of stricter safe distancing measures that were put in place during the circuit breaker period, according to the Ministry of Health (MOH).
Elevated Social Distancing Measures
A MOH spokesperson who spoke to Mothership said:
“In line with the set of elevated social distancing measures which are in place from Apr 7 to May 4 2020, all public hospitals, private hospitals and community hospitals will minimise visitation for inpatients with the intent to reduce non-essential movements and contact time.”
However, fret not. Some patients who meet the criteria will be allowed to have one caregiver at a time on compassionate grounds or when it’s deemed essential for their health and well-being.
These include:
- Inpatients who are critically ill
- Paediatric inpatients or special needs inpatients
- Palliative inpatients
- Inpatients lacking mental capacity
- Non-ambulatory/elderly inpatients ready for discharge, whose caregiver need to be trained to give care at home.
- Pregnant women admitted for delivery of babies
However, MOH wishes to remind the public that visitation hours are limited and should be strictly adhered to.
SGH Allows Patients To Have Up To 2 Caregivers
Singapore General Hospital (SGH)’s website states that from 7 April to 4 May (yes, right on the homepage), or for the duration of the circuit breaker period, no visitors will be allowed in the ward.
This is in line with the enhanced circuit breaker measures that Singapore implemented.
However, patients who meet the criteria and are granted exemption from the strict measures can nominate up to two caregivers.
Even then, only one of the two will be allowed to visit the patient at any given time.
Visitors to the ward must also bring their own mask and make sure that they wear it at all times when they’re visiting.
You can view the revised ward visitor police on SGH’s Facebook page here.
Other hospitals such as National University Hospital (NUH) and KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital have also posted updates on their visitor policy on their respective social media pages.
All the initiatives have a unified aim, which is to clamp down and prevent further spread of the highly contagious coronavirus.
However, it is understandable that it might be tough to be unable to visit your loved ones when they are warded.
Thus, let’s hope that the situation in Singapore gets better so that we can break free from these circuit breaker measures.
After all, 87 days have since passed since the Circuit –
Reader Bao: 7 days
Oh, right. Just 21 more days to go!
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