No More Postponement: Hospitals & Residential Care Homes Finally Allow Visitors from 4 Apr

By
Charleen Teh
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Starting from 4 April, in-person visits to all hospital wards and residential care homes will be allowed again.

Yesterday (31 Mar), the Ministry of Health (MOH) declared that the number of daily COVID-19 cases have fallen from its peak, and the situations in the hospitals and homes are becoming more manageable.

Naturally, there are still some regulations in place to ensure that there isn’t any overcrowding.

On Hospital Visitations

From next Monday, each hospital patient will be allowed to register up to two visitors for each admission, while critically ill are allowed to have five registered visitors at one time.

The patients and residents must be fully vaccinated or medically ineligible for vaccinations, unless it’s due to exceptional circumstances.

Only vaccinated individuals are allowed for in-person visits, though a concession has been made for those who have been proven medically ineligible for COVID-19 vaccination.

For the minority that fall in the latter category, they are encouraged to self-test before visiting, and they’re not required to show proof of a negative result before being granted access to the war or home.

For visitors that are not fully vaccinated—aka haven’t completed the full primary regime—they will only be allowed into the medical facilities under exceptional cases, and must show a negative antigen rapid test result (art) that was taken at a MOH-approved COVID-19 test provider within 24 hours of their visit.

The test providers are either combined test centres or quick test centres.

They are exempted from this clause if they have previously recovered from COVID-19 within 180 days of their visit, to which their TraceTogether app will show an |Exempted from Vaccination*” status.

No consumption of food or drinks are allowed in the hospital wards.

Visitors should also avoid using the patients’ toilets and sitting on the beds. In essence, don’t touch anything you shouldn’t, and all will be swell.

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On Residential Care Home Visitations

Similar to hospital in-person visits, residential care homes are bound by the same restrictions, with minor differences.

Each fully vaccinated resident will be allowed to admit up to four visitors, with each visitor being allowed 30 minutes per visit.

However, the residential care homes retain the right to suspend visits if they’re dealing with active COVID-19 cases on their premises.

Current COVID-19 Conditions

Thus far, Singapore has had to deal with several waves of COVID-19, due to the rise of numerous variants.

In Sep 2021, hospital and residential care home visitations were halted by a spike in the delta variant COVID-19 cases.

They were resumed on 22 Nov last year, but placed on hold again this January due to the surge in Omicron cases.

Compared to February and early March, where Omicron cases rose above 20,000 cases daily, the infection rates have dropped significantly the past few weeks.

Presently, the one-week infection ratio stands at 0.66, which is good news so long as it stays below the one integer.

Recovery seems to be proceeding in a good direction.

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Featured Image: Shutterstock / Toa55

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Charleen Teh
Email: [email protected]