SINGAPORE: Patients at several public healthcare institutions said they were mostly unaffected by the nine-hour system disruption on Tuesday (Oct 13), particularly later in the day, with most still going for appointments and collecting medication normally.
By the evening, there was little at healthcare institutions across Singapore to suggest that a system disruption had affected patient-facing services such as call centres, visitor registration and billing enquiries.
It was a markedly different picture from earlier in the day when a technical issue affecting network connectivity disrupted some services from around 7.10am and left patients facing longer waiting times and issues with making payments.
National health technology agency Synapxe said there was no indication that it was a cyber incident. Affected services were progressively back online from about 3pm, with all services restored by 4.37pm.
When CNA visited seven healthcare institutions between 2pm and 5.30pm on Tuesday, most patients said the disruption had a limited impact on services.
At the Singapore General Hospital (SGH) and the National Heart Centre – both part of the SingHealth cluster – most clinics did not have queues by around 3pm and there were no signs related to the earlier service disruption.
A meal service associate at SGH said she was informed of the service disruption at around 9.30am, with services mostly being resolved by around 3pm. She declined to provide her full name as she was not authorised to speak to the media.
She had to input meal orders on hospital computers after she faced issues with logins on iPads. She also encountered some visitors having issues with the gantries to the wards, and staff reverted to using stickers to identify visitors.
Mr Jamiat Sarip, a 70-year-old retiree, said he had visited the hospital at around 2.30pm while accompanying his sister to a medical appointment, but faced no issues as they were able to see a doctor quickly.
Although he did not receive a message reminder regarding his 4.40pm appointment at SGH, retiree Edward Chan said he was not certain that it was related to any service disruption earlier in the day.
By the time Ms Karen Teo, 56, arrived at SGH at around 3pm to see a doctor, she did not experience any long queues and was able to make payment within half an hour.
More than 30 patients were waiting to collect medicine at Outram Polyclinic about 30 minutes before closing time, but there were no signs indicating that systems were down. The clinic was fairly quiet.
Ms Lily Soh, who was leaving the clinic after being there for about two hours, said that while she saw her doctor 10 minutes after her scheduled appointment time, the wait to collect her medication at the pharmacy was “slightly longer than usual”.
But apart from that, nothing was amiss, said the 70-year-old.
When CNA arrived at NUH at around 2pm, signs posted at the main building pharmacy informed visitors of temporary service downtime. At the pharmacy at NUH’s Kent Ridge Wing, a sign was put up informing patients to expect wait times of about 60 minutes.
Multiple self-service kiosks were covered with signs saying that maintenance was underway.
A visitor who wanted to be known only as Mr Zol told CNA at about 2pm that he had been at NUH since 8am and was informed by hospital staff of the service disruption earlier in the day. He said he waited about 30 minutes to collect his medication.
Expectant mother Iffah Kamilia Mohammed Zaiful said her visit to the Women’s Clinic at NUH was largely unaffected, as her appointment was at 2pm and the disruption appeared to have “more or less” subsided by then.
She added that her doctor had called her earlier in the day to inform her of the disruption.
However, her appointment status on the National University Health System app was not updated even after her appointment had ended, and it continued to show that she was in the queue.
“I came after the downtime, but I heard it was very bad, that everything was being held up. I saw that the waiting time got longer because of the downtime,” she said.
Ms Iffah added that the television screens inside the clinic that normally display queue numbers were also not working.
"ONE OF THE LUCKY ONES"
Ms Roshini Michael said that when she visited her mother at Tan Tock Seng Hospital at about 1pm, all the self-registration machines were not working, with signs indicating that they were under maintenance.
“I found that quite strange that they were all down at the same time,” she said.
She had to register her details at the counter, but did not find the process too troublesome as it was not during the peak period and there was no queue.
Two gantries were open for visitors, with a staff member to ensure visitors had already registered before entering.
The 57-year-old teacher told CNA that when she left around 3.30pm, operations were back to normal.
At Yishun Community Hospital, self-registration kiosks and gantries were working normally, while one pharmacy had a handful of people.
About 30 patients were in the queue at the outpatient pharmacy at nearby Khoo Teck Puat Hospital.
Ms Zann, who only wanted to be referred to by her first name, had been waiting for 15 minutes for her medication after dental surgery. She said nothing was out of the norm and that the registration process before surgery was seamless.
Another patient, who wanted to be known as Ms Felicia, said she and her mother were “very lucky” as they got in and out of the geriatric clinic very quickly.
“We saw a lot of people waiting at the clinic … more than usual. But it quickly cleared up. One of the nurses came to tell us (about the system disruption), and said some parts of the system had already started working,” said the preschool teacher.
Given that she was ordering the medication online, Ms Felicia had time to apply for some grants and was done with everything she needed to do in less than two hours.
“It was a very productive day for me. I guess we’re one of the lucky ones.”