Mandatory routine testing for all hospital staff to be suspended from March 21
SINGAPORE — All hospital staff members will no longer be required to undergo a mandatory twice-weekly rostered routine test for Covid-19 from March 21 onwards.
Instead, those who are unwell with mild or severe symptoms should “self-test and follow the relevant national-level health protocols if they test positive”, a Ministry of Health (MOH) circular stated.
The memo was issued on Thursday (March 17) and TODAY has seen a copy of it. It was addressed to the senior management of public and private hospitals, as well as national specialty centres.
It stated that the policy changes will affect "all hospital inpatient and outpatient staff, as well as staff providing essential services in these settings".
Those who test positive for Covid-19 “should not have to produce a medical certificate” as well, it added.
MOH did not respond to queries to verify the authenticity of the circular, but several medical sources have confirmed it with TODAY.
Rostered routine testing was made mandatory for hospital and national health centres in May last year to enable the early detection of coronavirus infection among their employees.
MOH said in the circular that the high vaccination rates among hospital workers “and their commitment to strict safe management measures” have minimised the impact of Covid-19 on both healthcare workers and the system.
“As the Covid-19 situation is stabilising, and in line with the pivot to live with Covid-19, MOH will be rationalising Covid-19 measures, with the intent to relieve some of the work demands on our healthcare staff.”
'KIND OF OVERDUE'
Several medical professionals contacted by TODAY welcomed the change in policy and said that it was about time.
Dr Chuang Hsuan-Hung, a cardiologist at Gleneagles Hospital, said that the change in policy is “kind of overdue”, given the extensive vaccination coverage in Singapore and that the Omicron strain of the coronavirus is less virulent.
“More importantly, the onus is on individuals to exercise their civic responsibilities, to test themselves if they are symptomatic and to stay away from crowds if they have tested positive or if they are immuno-compromised.”
Agreeing, Dr Ong Kian Chung, a respiratory physician practising at Mount Elizabeth Hospital, said that if the authorities can trust the public to do their own self-tests, then all the more they should trust healthcare professionals to do the same.
He also said that having to go through the supervised tests twice a week is both an “unpleasant duty and an unpleasant routine”, because it is troublesome having to find a suitable time where he can avoid the crowds.
Aside from being troublesome, a nurse with the National University Health System believes that rostered routine tests may not be accurate.
Ms Ha Xiao Hui, who has yet to hear from her management about the change in policy, said: "It's very tiring to keep swabbing our nose. Some (people) swab deep, some of them swab outside only... So you don't know how accurate the results will be.
"I have colleagues who got a negative result from an antigen rapid test, but a follow-up with a PCR (polymerase chain reaction) test showed a positive."
The efficacy of the rostered routine tests were described by Health Minister Ong Ye Kung as not high during a press conference by the national Covid-19 task force on Feb 16. He said that the average positive rate is less than 0.2 per cent.
"By the time you go through routine rostered testing and pick up a case, the individual would most likely have spread it to other people... It is better that we switch to a regime where people are advised to be very vigilant," he said then.
Dr Desmond Wai, a gastroenterologist and hepatologist at Mount Elizabeth, said that doing away with the tests will also save on resources. This is because each test costs between S$30 and S$40 at the hospital where he works, and involves a fair bit of manpower.
In any case, he said that aside from all staff members being fully vaccinated, healthcare workers also wear N95 masks — which have better filtration and leakage than ordinary masks — and don personal protective equipment when carrying out procedures on patients.
"So the risk of transmission to patients is very low," Dr Wai said.
"Covid-19 has changed a lot over the past two years and it is much less lethal. Now, everything is short — short incubation, short recovery and short symptoms. So, therefore, it is time that we review our policy accordingly and remove those non-cost-effective items... and save it for other things."
