SGH medical team comes home after Dhaka mission to help treat burn victims from fighter jet crash
Dr Jolin Wong (left) and Dr Irene Wong from SGH's Department of Surgical Intensive Care checking on a burn patient in Dhaka.
SINGAPORE – A team of nurses and doctors from the Singapore General Hospital (SGH) that went to Bangladesh to help treat burn victims of a fatal fighter jet crash has returned home.
The eight-member team, comprising five nurses and three doctors, flew to Dhaka in stages, after an air force jet
crashed into a school compound on July 21.
More than 30 people were killed, and another 170 or so were injured. About 80 victims were hospitalised for a raft of injuries including serious burns. Many of the victims were children.
A call for help came from the Bangladesh High Commission office in Singapore, asking for medical reinforcements, said Associate Professor Ong Yee Siang, who is SGH head of plastic, reconstructive and aesthetic surgery.
On July 22, a team headed to Dhaka, led by SGH senior consultant Chong Si Jack and comprising nurses Jovan Lim and Poon Lai Kuan, as well as SingHealth international collaboration office director Vijaya Rao.
On July 24, a second group left for the Bangladeshi capital, this one comprising doctors Jolin Wong and Irene Wong, and nurse clinicians Chester Chow, Wei Guiru and Tan Kwee Yuen.
Teaming up with medical staff in Dhaka, the Singapore team helped with burn dressings, surgical excisions and skin graft operations, said Prof Ong.
The team also lent its expertise to Dhaka hospital staff in areas like caring for critically ill patients, infection prevention and control protocols, he added. Doctors in Singapore also pitched in remotely, making themselves available for teleconsultations.
Singapore and Bangladesh have longstanding ties in sharing expertise on treating burn victims.
In 2016, public healthcare cluster SingHealth and the National Institute of Burn and Plastic Surgery in Dhaka inked a deal that paved the way for efforts aimed at strengthening Bangladesh's burn management programme, said Prof Ong.
SingHealth also helps train medical professionals and shore up expertise in caring for burn patients as part of the deal that was renewed in 2024, he added.
SGH is among the Singapore hospitals that fall under the SingHealth umbrella.
In 2017, an SGH team visited the National Institute of Burns and Plastic Surgery – among the largest burn units in the world – to treat burn victims and carry out clinical training.
De facto Bangladeshi prime minister Muhammad Yunus met the Singapore team on July 27 in Dhaka, along with other medical staff from China and India, who also helped with treatment and medical support.
Dr Yunos, a Nobel laureate, said: 'These teams have come not just with their skills, but with their hearts. Their presence reaffirms our shared humanity and the value of global partnerships in times of tragedy.'
He added that many lives were saved because the teams showed up in Dhaka quickly and helped.
Dr Yunus put up a Facebook post about the meeting, and added that charge d'affaires Mitchel Lee, who heads the Singapore High Commission in Dhaka, was also at the meeting.
The Bangladesh Air Force fighter jet in the July 21 incident had experienced mechanical failure and crashed into a building that was part of Milestone School and College.
It was a school day and students were attending classes when the plane hit the two-storey building at 1.06pm.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Straits Times
36 minutes ago
- Straits Times
China to offer free pre-school education from autumn
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox The announcement comes a week after China said it would offer parents the equivalent of US$500 (S$644.44) a year for each child under the age of three. BEIJING - China said on Aug 5 it would introduce free pre-school education from the autumn, as the world's second most populous nation seeks to boost childbirth in the face of a looming demographic crisis. China's population has declined for three consecutive years , with United Nations demography models predicting it could fall from around 1.4 billion today to 800 million by 2100. There were just 9.54 million births in China in 2024, half the number in 2016, when Beijing ended its one-child policy after more than three decades. The population declined by 1.39 million in 2024, and China lost its crown as the world's most populous country to India in 2023. Marriage rates are also at record low levels, with many young couples put off having babies by high child-rearing costs and career concerns. On Aug 5, China's Cabinet, the State Council, announced: 'Starting in the fall semester of 2025, childcare and education fees will be waived for children attending public kindergartens in the year before school'. The policy aims to 'effectively reduce the cost of education, improve the level of public education services, and provide education that satisfies the people', the State Council said. Beijing described it as an 'important measure that concerns thousands upon thousands of households and relates to long-term development'. Funding for the new measure would be shared between the central and local authorities, while children attending approved private kindergartens would also be eligible for fee reductions. The announcement comes a week after the country said it would offer parents the equivalent of US$500 (S$644.44) per year for each child under the age of three. At a news conference in Beijing last week, National Health Commission (NHC) official Wang Haidong acknowledged that the country had 'gradually shifted from a phase of population growth to a phase of population decline'. 'The childcare subsidy system can directly increase people's cash income,' Mr Guo Yanhong, vice-minister of the NHC, said. Chinese leaders have in recent years struggled to breathe life into the economy, beset by a years-long property crisis that has spooked would-be homebuyers and dissuaded many people from having children. China's shrinking population is also ageing fast, sparking worries about the future of the country's pension system. There were nearly 310 million people aged 60 and over in 2024. AFP
Straits Times
36 minutes ago
- Straits Times
Locally developed VR tool can detect pre-dementia with almost 90% accuracy
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox Housewife Goh Ai Lian trying out virtual reality based cognitive screening tool Cavire-2, at Eunos Polyclinic on Aug 5. SINGAPORE - The immersive environments enabled by virtual reality (VR) have made the technology great for gaming and training. Now, a locally developed VR application can be used to identify which seniors have mild cognitive impairment, or pre-dementia, with almost 90 per cent accuracy. This is according to a study of the technology's effectiveness in primary care settings by SingHealth Polyclinics. The tool, known as Cognitive Assessment by VIrtual REality (Cavire-2), is designed to assess six cognitive functions – memory, attention, language, perceptual-motor function, social cognition, and executive function – through 13 interactive scenarios involving daily living tasks. Set in virtual environments of everyday places such as a Housing Board flat and a supermarket, it requires users to perform daily tasks such as calculating the price of fruits and choosing bank notes of various denominations to pay for groceries, all while a baby is crying in the background to assess their ability to focus. In the assessment of social cognition – referring to the mental processes involved in how people perceive and respond to people and situations around them – users are tested on their responses to situations such as witnessing a birthday party or a traffic accident. Starting in 2020, primary care researchers from SingHealth Polyclinics worked with local VR software firm FXMedia to develop Cavire-2. The study found that Cavire-2 is able to reliably distinguish between cognitively healthy individuals and those with mild cognitive impairment, with 88.9 per cent accuracy. Top stories Swipe. Select. Stay informed. Singapore 'She had a whole life ahead of her': Boyfriend mourns Yishun fatal crash victim Singapore Doctor hounds ex-girlfriend, threatens to share her intimate photos, abducts her from public street Singapore Beauty industry consumers hit by 464% rise in prepayment losses in first half of 2025 Sport S'pore National Olympic Council launches book series honouring local athletes in celebration of SG60 Singapore New cargo handling centre at Changi Airport reduces processing time; test bed for future T5 ops Singapore Over 5,900 vape products found in car at Woodlands Checkpoint Singapore 13 taken to hospital after accident involving SBS buses, car in Tampines Singapore Elderly man charged after he allegedly molested, performed sex act on 'vulnerable' man The VR screening tool was also found to be able to accurately identify those with no cognitive issues 70.5 per cent of the time. Findings from the study were published in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Virtual Reality in July. Conventional methods of assessing cognition include the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) and the mini mental state examination. These are questionnaires typically conducted using pen and paper, testing areas such as attention and memory. But these methods lack 'ecological validity', a term which refers to how the results can be applied in real-life settings, said Clinical Associate Professor Tan Ngiap Chuan, director of research at SingHealth Polyclinics. 'We do not know how you actually perform your day-to-day activities. This is the critical gap that we try to address through the use of virtual reality technology,' said Prof Tan, who is also director of SingHealth Polyclinic's Primary Care Research Institute. SingHealth Polyclinics' research officer Lim Jie En noted that Cavire-2 is tailored to reflect familiar situations in Singapore's context. 'This allows us to assess cognitive function in a way that's both culturally relevant and closely aligned with a person's ability to manage daily life,' said Mr Lim. There are plans to introduce Cavire-2 at SingHealth Polyclinics, though a timeline for its rollout has not been set. Detecting cognitive impairment is especially important given Singapore's rapidly ageing population, with one in four people will be aged 65 and older by 2030 , Prof Tan told reporters at a press conference on Aug 5. He noted that about one in eight people here has mild cognitive impairment, between 10 and 18 per cent of whom will develop Alzheimer's disease – the main cause of dementia – within a year. 'While there is currently no cure for dementia, leveraging technologies and AI to detect early cognitive changes enable timely interventions that may help slow disease progression and preserve quality of life,' said Prof Tan. Current dementia interventions include drugs as well as brain stimulating activities such as memory games and physical exercise. While the use of other VR tools to assess cognitive impairment has been studied, these have been limited in that they have not been able to assess all six cognitive domains and their use has not been tested in primary care settings, he added. To test the effectiveness of Cavire-2 as a cognitive assessment tool, a study involving 280 people of different races, aged between 55 and 84, was conducted at Eunos Polyclinic between August 2023 and January 2024. Blind tests – where researchers were unaware of the participants' cognitive conditions – were conducted to minimise potential bias, with each participant completing both the Cavire-2 as well as the standard MoCA assessment. To evaluate the reliability of Cavire-2 in assessing cognition, 100 participants returned to complete the VR assessment a second time. The results demonstrated the tool's reliability, yielding consistent results after repeated tests. Noting that the study found that age and educational background also influenced outcomes, Prof Tan said this could point to the need for greater customisation in such cognitive assessments. Housewife Goh Ai Lian, 61, who was one of the participants in the study, said she was 'hesitant to take the test initially because I was afraid it might diagnose me with early-stage dementia'. (From left) FXMedia CEO Mark Wong, SingHealth Polyclinics research officer Lim Jie En, Clinical Associate Professor Tan Ngiap Chuan, and housewife Madam Goh Ai Lian, wearing the Cavire-2. PHOTO: LIANHE ZAOBAO After undergoing the Cavire-2 assessment, she was found not to have mild cognitive impairment. Nonetheless, Madam Goh described the tool as taking a 'respectful and welcoming approach' to detecting dementia. The next phase of Cavire-2's development is to test its effectiveness in charting the effectiveness of any interventions to delay the onset of dementia in those with mild cognitive impairment. A panel of healthcare professionals, including neurologists and family physicians, will also be reviewing Cavire-2's content, such as its scenarios, to assess its effectiveness.
Straits Times
3 hours ago
- Straits Times
60 lactation pods to be set up in public spaces by Q1 2026 for breastfeeding mothers
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox The average time spent in a pod to pump milk, feed or recharge is around 20 minutes. SINGAPORE – By the first quarter of 2026, nursing mothers will have access to more comfortable spaces in public to breastfeed their babies or express milk. A total of sixty new lactation pods will be set up across Singapore in high footfall locations, such as parks, libraries, transport hubs and office campuses. Local start-up and social enterprise Go!Mama launched the new pods on Aug 5 ahead of Singapore's 60th birthday, in partnership with Temasek Foundation and the National Volunteer and Philanthropy Centre. This is the start-up's most ambitious roll-out to date, and marks the crossing of the halfway point to its 300-pod goal by the end of 2026. There are currently close to 100 pods in the Republic by Go!Mama, which have been used by more than 20,000 mothers and caregivers. The average time spent in a pod to pump milk, feed or recharge is around 20 minutes. Go!Mama first launched its pods in 2021 with a trial of five pods on Sentosa. Top stories Swipe. Select. Stay informed. Singapore 'She had a whole life ahead of her': Boyfriend mourns Yishun fatal crash victim Singapore Beauty industry consumers hit by 464% rise in prepayment losses in first half of 2025 Singapore 13 taken to hospital after accident involving SBS buses, car in Tampines Singapore Singapore-made bot matchmakes strangers virtually – without profile photos Life Urinary issues: Enlarged prostate affects half of men in their 50s and up Singapore Elderly man charged after he allegedly molested, performed sex act on 'vulnerable' man Singapore has made moves to improve accessibility to clean and comfortable breastfeeding spaces in recent months, with the Building and Construction Authority (BCA) revising its code in February to require new buildings with a floor area larger than 5,000 sq m to provide at least one lactation room. The existing code requires only larger buildings with a gross floor area of 10,000 sq m to have such a room. The new code also lays out requirements for the lactation room, like the minimum size of the space and the availability of sockets and mirrors. It should not be located within a toilet, according to the new requirements. The revisions will take effect in November for new buildings and existing buildings undergoing major renovations. Minister in the Prime Minister's Office Indranee Rajah said at the launch of the new pods on Aug 5 that in existing buildings that are not being renovated or may face space or configuration constraints, lactation pods can make all the difference. Ms Indranee Rajah, Minister in the Prime Minister's Office, viewing the heritage-themed pods at the Asian Civilisations Museum on Aug 5. ST PHOTO: ARIFFIN JAMAR The pods are a flexible option that can be easily deployed to support breastfeeding mothers and employees, and provide them with a dedicated space to nurse, she said. 'Additional lactation pods in public spaces will benefit many breastfeeding mothers. More importantly, their deployment signals the strong support and partnership from our private sector and community partners in building a Singapore made for families and in fostering a society that supports and values parenthood.' She added: 'Women are a crucial part of out workforce, and it is important that our workplaces evolve to support them at different stages of their parental journey.' The 60 pods to be launched will feature heritage-inspired artwork as an ode to Singapore's 60th birthday. 'The heritage-inspired artwork reflects Singapore's evolving story – one where care and inclusion are woven into our shared spaces. We wanted these pods to stand out, not hide in the background, and serve as visible reminders that supporting families is a responsibility we all share,' founder of Go!Mama Vivian Lee told The Straits Times. The SG60 pods will be the first to feature integrated digital screens, both inside and outside. These serve as platforms that mothers and caregivers can use to receive public health content, parent-friendly information, and discover the stories of other parents. Companies can 'adopt' a pod and have it placed inside their commercial spaces, offices, or community venues. Brands can also partner with Go!Mama to utilise the screens for their messaging or advertisements, as long as they align with the start-up's mission. Revenue generated through brand partnerships directly supports the continued deployment and maintenance of pods, ensuring their long-term sustainability and extended reach, Ms Lee said. Ms Sandy Lee, 27, wanted to work after giving birth to her first child in 2016, but hesitated as she was worried about having a proper space to express milk. She also found it difficult to spend time outside the home with her baby due to the absence of dedicated breastfeeding spaces – she had to make do with nursing in a toilet or diaper-changing room. 'A lot of places double up a diaper-changing room with a nursing room, but that does not work. Diaper-changing rooms are freely accessible, and anyone can enter, like fathers who need to attend to their child or get hot water to make milk,' she said. 'Having a good environment for mothers is important when trying to breastfeed or express milk.' Ms Lee, who is a business development executive, had her second baby in 2024 and has been using Go!Mama pods since. 'When I share with friends about the availability of these pods now, it alleviates some of the worries they may have about having children. They know Singapore is becoming friendlier to mothers,' she said.
