Skip to main content

New! You can personalise your feed. Try it now

Advertisement

Advertisement

NUS’ Prince George’s Park Residences to serve as facility for Covid-19 patients who have largely recovered

SINGAPORE — Prince George’s Park Residences, a student housing estate at the National University of Singapore (NUS), is being converted into what is known as a “community recovery facility” to house Covid-19 patients who are over the worst of their symptoms, NUS said on Thursday (May 14).

NUS’ Prince George’s Park Residences will serve as a facility for Covid-19 patients who have largely recovered.

NUS’ Prince George’s Park Residences will serve as a facility for Covid-19 patients who have largely recovered.

Follow TODAY on WhatsApp

SINGAPORE — Prince George’s Park Residences, a student housing estate at the National University of Singapore (NUS), is being converted into what is known as a “community recovery facility” to house Covid-19 patients who are over the worst of their symptoms, NUS said on Thursday (May 14).

And at the Nanyang Technological University (NTU), a hall of residence that previously functioned as a quarantine site will be redesignated as a "swab isolation facility" to house foreign workers awaiting the results of their Covid-19 swab tests.

In an email to students and staff that was obtained by TODAY, NUS president Tan Eng Chye said that Prince George’s Park Residences will be managed according to “strict safety and security protocols” to ensure the safety and well-being of the NUS community and all involved in running the recovery facility. It will begin operations from next Monday (May 18) until a date in July that was not specified.

The Ministry of Education has confirmed that Prince George’s Park Residences is the first community recovery facility that has been set up at an Institute of Higher Learning (IHL).

According to a frequently asked questions (FAQ) sheet linked to the email, 28 blocks totalling almost 2,900 rooms at Prince George’s Park Residences will be used.

Two remaining graduate student apartments at the residences will continue to house residents, while separate teams will be deployed to these blocks to provide housekeeping and security services.

All food outlets as well as the minimart at Prince George’s Park Residences will be closed when the facility is in operation. An internal bus shuttle serving the residences will continue to operate as usual.

The FAQ sheet also said that the rooms and surrounding premises will be professionally disinfected before Prince George’s Park Residences is reopened to students.

In January, Blocks 5, 6, 7 and 8 at Residence 2 of Prince George’s Park Residences were used as government quarantine facilities. Residents in those blocks were moved into Residence 1, a neighbouring block.

These blocks will now be part of the Prince George’s Park Residences recovery facility.

The Health Ministry has said that Covid-19 patients who are still well on Day 14 after their diagnosis with Covid-19 and who do not require further medical care may be moved to community recovery facilities.

Right now, six military camps, including those at Amoy Quee, Jurong and Guillemard, have also been converted into recovery facilities that can house a total of 5,300 Covid-19 patients.

On April 28, the authorities announced that more than 10,000 bed spaces will be made available at community recovery facilities by the end of June.

NTU HALL TO BECOME SWAB ISOLATION FACILITY 

Over at NTU, its Graduate Hall 1, which was previously a quarantine site, will be redesignated as a swab isolation facility.

In a circular to hall residents on Thursday, a copy of which was seen by TODAY, NTU's deputy associate provost for residential education Valerie Du Toit-Low and head of housing and auxiliary services Alvin Chin said the facility will temporarily house foreign workers who are awaiting the results of their swab tests and are unable to self-isolate in their own residence.

Each worker will typically stay there for two or three days, they said. Workers who test negative will return to their places of residence, while those who test positive for Covid-19 will be sent to a medical facility for further follow-up.

Associate Professor Du Toit-Low and Mr Chin assured hall residents that strict safeguards are in place to ensure the safety of the university community.

These include ringfencing Graduate Hall 1 to ensure that only authorised crew are allowed entry and making sure that all persons housed at the isolation facility stay in their designated rooms at all times. They will not be allowed to use common facilities in the hall.

All staff members working at the isolation facility must also be in personal protective equipment.

Assoc Prof Du Toit-Low and Mr Chin added that food and all necessary supplies would be delivered to the workers at the facility, which will be subject to rigorous cleansing and hygiene regimes according to government guidelines.

Uniformed crew will ensure compliance with the security measures and the Government’s public health guidelines, they added.

“Once the facility is no longer operational, Graduate Hall 1 will be thoroughly disinfected, before it reverts to regular use as a hall of residence,” they said.

Singapore is in the midst of an aggressive campaign to test migrant workers, who are typically housed in densely packed dormitories. 

Migrant workers in dormitories continue to form the vast majority of Covid-19 cases in the country, which stood at 26,098 as of Thursday. 

National Development Minister Lawrence Wong said earlier this week that all 323,000 migrant workers in dormitories would be tested for Covid-19, with around 3,000 tests being done daily at present. As of Tuesday, about 10 per cent of these workers had been tested.

Related topics

Covid-19 coronavirus NUS NTU community recovery facility swab isolation facility

Read more of the latest in

Advertisement

Advertisement

Stay in the know. Anytime. Anywhere.

Subscribe to get daily news updates, insights and must reads delivered straight to your inbox.

By clicking subscribe, I agree for my personal data to be used to send me TODAY newsletters, promotional offers and for research and analysis.