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SIA and government formalise manpower training and deployment for future crises

Douglas Toh
·2-min read

The MOH, PSD and SIA sign MOU to train cabin crew for deployment in event of national crises.

The Ministry of Health (MOH), Public Service Division (PSD) and Singapore Airlines C6l (SIA) have announced a trilateral memorandum of understanding (MOU) to formalise the commitment to collaborate on manpower planning and deployment for future national crises.

The MOU aims to strengthen national collective resilience and agility through collaboration to train and volunteer deployment of cabin crew in support care roles, as well as tabletop exercises to stress test crisis response protocols.

The collaboration was first initiated as a result of the urgent need for additional manpower back in early 2020 to help deal with the pandemic, while there was a surplus of grounded SIA and Scoot cabin crew.

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Some 2,000 employees from the SIA Group took on frontline roles in various public agencies and healthcare institutions then.

For example, over 900 cabin crew served as care ambassadors to support healthcare institutions in patient care, while SIA and Scoot staff were also temporarily redeployed as transport ambassadors, contact tracing executives, and social service office processing officers.

SIA Group Ambassadors 

The first step of the collaboration announced on Jan 15 will be the training and deployment of around 50 SIA and Scoot cabin crew by the SG Healthcare Corps (SHC), who will volunteer their time as SIA Group Ambassadors at Khoo Teck Puat Hospital and Changi General Hospital from April.

These SIA Group Ambassadors will be part of a pool of around 200 trained SG Healthcare Corps care volunteers who will serve alongside the healthcare workforce to meet the needs of patients.

The formalisation of the MOU comes about following other initiatives by the MOH to build a reserve healthcare workforce in preparation for another pandemic such as the setting up of a new Communicable Diseases Agency, increasing global surveillance and strengthening of hospital capacity.

Chan Yeng Kit, permanent secretary of health at MOH says: “Even as MOH continues to build up our healthcare workforce to meet the needs of the population and implement plans to prepare for future national crises, we are growing our pool of trained healthcare volunteers through the SG Healthcare Corps. This will strengthen the resilience of our healthcare system both during peacetime and in the next crisis.”

“The public service constantly looks and plans ahead for Singapore and Singaporeans. This MOU enables us to lock in and strengthen a successful public-private partnership that was forged during the Covid-19 pandemic,” adds Teoh Zsin Woon, permanent secretary of development at PSD.

Goh Choon Phong, Chief Executive Officer of SIA, concludes: “Today’s agreement formalises our partnership with MOH and PSD, establishing a pathway to seamlessly redeploy our people once again, should a similar situation arise.”

As at 4.30 pm, shares in SIA are trading at one cent lower or 0.15% down at $6.51.

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