President Halimah Yacob Visits the Home Recovery Task Group

President Halimah Yacob (second from right) and Senior Minister of State for Defence Mr Zaqy Mohamad (right) speaking with LTA Thangavel Pandi Sushin (left) from 42 SAR, who is the Team Lead of the Inbound Call Centre.

President Halimah Yacob visited the Home Recovery Task Group (HRTG) this morning. During the visit, President Halimah was briefed on the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF)'s support to the Whole-Of-Government effort in fighting COVID-19. She also interacted with personnel from the SAF and the Ministry of Health (MOH) involved in the management of the Home Recovery Programme (HRP).

The SAF stood up the HRTG on 29 September to support national efforts in scaling up the HRP. Together with MOH, the SAF has assisted in the streamlining of workflows and processes of the HRP, including manning call centres and developing software programs to strengthen IT systems^[1]. To date, more than 450 SAF personnel have been deployed to support the HRTG. 70 personnel from the SAF Medical Corps and Combat Service Support Command (CSSCOM) are also currently augmenting two COVID-19 Treatment Facilities (CTFs).

Sharing her thoughts on the visit, President Halimah expressed her appreciation towards the SAF. "I can see that the SAF is doing a wonderful job in helping to support the MOH's Home Recovery Programme and also in helping them to upscale this programme," she said. "They have the competencies and skills to mobilise their resources at very short notice, and I think that is important." 

She also recognised the efforts of all who are involved in supporting individuals on HRP. "There are so many groups behind the scenes that are working together – some of them are volunteers, volunteering on their own time," she said. "I know the amount of work, the tremendous effort that goes into ensuring the Home Recovery Programme works. So I want to thank everyone, the SAF personnel, and all others involved."

The visit was hosted by Brigadier-General Tan Cheng Kwee, the SAF Task Lead, and Colonel Tong Yi Chuen, Commander of the HRTG. President Halimah was also accompanied by Senior Minister of State for Defence Mr Zaqy Mohamad and Chief of Defence Force, Lieutenant-General Melvyn Ong.

^[1] The RSAF Innovation Office (SWiFT Office) developed customised solutions within MOH's helpdesk system to facilitate the running of the HRTG's operations, which included scripts to enable seamless management of large amounts of data from different parts of MOH, and an automated SMS system.

ME5 Jonathan Ng Jia Yong (left), the Technical Team Lead of the RSAF Innovation Office (SWiFT Office) team, presenting to President Halimah Yacob (right) the software program that the team developed to automatically send SMSes.