SINGAPORE – Plans are in place to ramp up the capacity of public hospitals and intensive care units, given the higher transmissibility of the Omicron variant and the possibility of a surge in local cases.

In a statement on Tuesday (Dec 14), the Ministry of Health (MOH) said, to help manage the load in public hospitals, it is also prepared to increase the capacity of community treatment facilities (CTFs).

This is to facilitate direct admission or transfer of more stable Covid-19 patients from public hospitals to CTFs for continued monitoring if necessary.

“To complement these efforts, we are concurrently stepping up efforts to augment the manpower required in our hospitals and CTFs,” it added.

A total of 16 cases of Omicron have been detected in Singapore to date – 14 of which were imported cases.

The two local cases were airport passenger service staff working at Changi Airport.

All are fully vaccinated, with no or mild symptoms.

Those infected with Omicron will also be included in the home recovery programme, Health Minister Ong Ye Kung said at a press conference held by the multi-ministry task force tackling Covid-19.

The minister, who thanked general practitioners (GPs) for looking after patients under the home recovery programme, said MOH is looking at how GPs can “play an even bigger role” in the case of a big Omicron wave.

Currently, those who feel that they are well, but have a positive Covid-19 antigen rapid test (ART) test result, are required to stay at home under the programme. They can leave when their ART test is negative.

However, given the higher transmissibility of the Omicron variant, there will be a need to push the idea of “right-siting” even further.

Right-siting refers to treating patients in the most appropriate location by medically competent teams at the lowest possible cost.

“Today, GPs only prescribe a PCR (polymerase chain reaction) test to someone who feels unwell. Once positive, the patient will likely be put under the home recovery programme,” noted Mr Ong.

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However, he said GPs can be further empowered such that they can judge the disposition and the risk profile of the patient, and determine whether to do a PCR or ART test for the patient.

For example, for very mild or asymptomatic cases, the GP may just want to do an ART test.

A patient who has tested positive in this scenario may be given a few days of medical leave, and can leave home when their ART is negative.

This protocol would decentralise a system currently administered by MOH, said Mr Ong.

He added that this is an idea and proposal that MOH will be engaging the GPs on in the coming days.

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