The government of Singapore is providing free hospitalization to Filipinos with valid permits to stay, Philippine Ambassador Jose Yap said Tuesday.
Currently, Yap said only 35 out of the 578 confirmed cases among Filipinos are confined at isolation wards in hospitals while the rest have fully recovered with zero fatality.
“Here in Singapore, the government actually takes care of all the COVID cases. If you test positive, the government will bring you to the hospital or to an isolation ward and if you’re a long-term pass holder, meaning you have a permit to stay in Singapore, the government actually takes care of all the expenses for your treatment in the hospital. So, in terms of expenses, we don’t have to worry for our kababayans for that, the government of Singapore takes care of that,” Yap said during the regular Laging Handa briefing.
According to the Filipino diplomat, they made an arrangement with Singapore’s Ministry of Health to provide every Filipino who will be admitted to the hospital for COVID-19 the contact number of the Embassy to allow the patients to reach out to them for their specific concerns.
“Of course, they are isolated, so, we cannot visit them, we’re not able to go see them but we are able to assist them in terms of their urgent needs or to contact their next of kin or things like that,” he added.
The Embassy is also issuing daily advisories for all Filipino nationals in Singapore through their official Facebook account and website to update them on the COVID situation and reiterate the Singapore government’s issuance of new policies, guidelines, restrictions, and even hygiene protocols.
Since the start of the outbreak last year, Singapore has a total of 61,651 confirmed cases, 61,134 of which have recovered, and 31 fatalities, according to the data compiled by the online COVID-19 monitoring platform, Worldometers.
It was reported that among the latest imported COVID-19 cases monitored by Singaporean authorities were those of a long-term visit pass holder who arrived from the UAE and a work pass holder from the Philippines. The remaining imported cases are three work permit holders who arrived from Indonesia and the Philippines, two of whom are foreign domestic workers.