SINGAPORE – The bid to free up capacity at public hospitals has become more urgent as efforts made to ring-fence the fast growing number of coronavirus clusters becomes more challenging.

Transfers of recovering patients from public to private hospitals have been made on an almost daily basis since late last week. And three private hospitals received more patients from the National Centre for Infectious Diseases (NCID) on Wednesday (April 8).

It was less than three weeks ago when patients recovering from Covid-19 were first moved from NCID to two private hospitals and D’Resort NTUC, which can accommodate 500 people.

Now a second and much bigger community isolation facility is quickly being set up at Singapore Expo to prepare for possible eruptions in new infections in the near future.

The Straits Times understands that there are plans to move a small number of patients to the Singapore Expo halls as soon as Friday. One hall will be for those in recovery, while another is earmarked for patients with a mild case of the disease.

They would be the newly-diagnosed patients who may be cared for at the facility until they are discharged or moved to the hospitals if their condition worsens.

While Covid-19 can spread very quickly, about 80 per cent of the cases are mild, which has led countries such as Britain, Austria, Germany, Spain, China and Malaysia to re-purpose exhibition halls into temporary hospitals to house patients.

The number of new infections in Singapore has risen significantly in the past two weeks or so. There were 106 new cases reported on Tuesday – which was the total number of cases here on March 1.

There are now 1,481 cases – 627 are in public hospitals, including 29 who are critically ill, and 471 in private hospitals and D’Resort. Six have died and 377 have been discharged.

NCID first moved 20 patients to Concord International Hospital on March 20, and then 56 patients to two Parkway hospitals – Mount Elizabeth and Gleneagles – in the following week to free up beds for more severe cases.

The patients who were transferred were all stable and recovering but they harboured the virus and so needed to be isolated.

They cannot leave the ward or have visitors. All staff taking care of these patients are not allowed to serve patients in other parts of the hospital, said Dr Noel Yeo, the senior vice-president for hospital operations in the Singapore Operations Division at Parkway Pantai.

He said they have discharged 24 patients and taken in more.

NCID transferred seven patients to Mount Elizabeth and 18 patients to Mount Elizabeth Novena Hospital on Wednesday. It had already transferred five patients to Mount Elizabeth on Monday and eight on Sunday.

The three Parkway hospitals are now caring for 75 Covid-19 patients, with 71 of them are in recovery.

The remaining four include the two previously reported Indonesian patients at Gleneagles Hospital and one at Mount Elizabeth and one at Mount Elizabeth Novena. They tested positive to Covid-19 at the ParkwayHealth Lab, the first private laboratory here to be approved by the Ministry of Health (MOH) for Covid-19 testing using A*Star’s Fortitude test kits.

Dr Yeo said the lab has performed more than 1,000 tests since March 3. These are mostly done on patients at Parkway hospitals as well as those from the Parkway Shenton general practitioner clinics. Some are done for the other private hospitals and 14 MOH-approved GP clinics.

Mount Alvernia Hospital first chipped in to receive 15 patients – all aged below 30 with mild symptoms and in recovery – from NCID in two batches last Thursday and Friday.

It received four more on Tuesday from the National University Hospital and a further 16 were moved from NCID on Wednesday.

Concord International Hospital, which has discharged 10 patients, has also quickly filled its two-bedders in a sealed-off ward with a fresh batch of 10 infections from NCID on Wednesday.

Given the expected rise in cases, these private hospitals are prepared to continue caring for recovering patients.

Concord International chairman Yap Yaw Kong said they are working closely with MOH and NCID to receive new patients when they discharge existing ones.

Mount Alvernia Hospital has dedicated space to care for up to 40 clinically well Covid-19 patients, said a spokesman.

Parkway Pantai is prepared to care for more recovering cases and has carved out space at its fourth hospital, Parkway East, where patients will be housed on a different level as the maternity ward.

Another private hospital, Farrer Park, has reserved an entire ward of 26 beds on one floor for Covid-19 patients and expects to receive them in the next few days.

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