In response to the news about how staff in medical scrubs are being refused service by hawkers and shunned in the MRT, TSMP under the direction of joint managing partner Stefanie Yuen Thio has started a series of initiatives to show that Singaporeans do appreciate our healthcare heroes at the Covid-19 battle frontlines. This was reported in the Business Times and on Channel NewsAsia on 13 February 2020.

1. TSMP Law Corporation and small-startup-with-a-big-heart Golden Duck co-sponsored and delivered 2,000 packets of halal snacks to SGH. It is a tangible gesture of admiration for the nurses, cleaners and administrators (of course doctors are heroes too but we felt the public disdain is probably experienced by the rank and file more). Thio Shen Yi, June Ho and Leon Lim were waiting at the loading dock to man the forklift and unload the cartons.

2. Organising bento lunch runs for hospital staff. Not only are the healthcare professionals overstretched, with little time for a lunch break, but once they are gowned up they can’t leave and return to the wards without having to decontaminate. Stefanie has rallied pledges of sponsorship from fellow professionals, old friends and people who are barely connected hit her LinkedIn and Facebook messaging platforms for 100 catered lunches to be sent every weekday to the hospital to boost morale. Lunch will be served, starting this Monday.

3. She provided the seed donation for the Sayang Sayang Fund, a Community Foundation of Singapore Impact Fund set up to support those impacted by the epidemic. With a target of S$500,000, half will be allocated to buying $5 taxi vouchers for tired hospital staff so that they get home in, quite literally, some Comfort. A shoutout to Comfort DelGro for supporting the initiative with no hesitation. https://www.giving.sg/community-foundati…/sayang_sayang_fund

4. Really heartening that the initiative to provide meals to hospital staff has been adopted by large Singapore real estate companies, who are working with their F&B tenants to sponsor 200 meals daily to Tan Tock Seng Hospital and the National Centre for Infectious Diseases, starting from today, with other public hospitals to follow.

5. The first Handprint event for 2020 will take on a different format to reduce the risk of community transmission. As we don’t know how long DORSCON Orange will be in place, it will centre around preparing care packages for frontline medical staff, and the race is on to source hand lotions and medicated plasters to ease their load.

Bad news always travels faster, so anecdotes about poor behaviour will always command more attention. But the overwhelming generosity shown by Singaporeans and foreigners working on our shores, who were just looking for opportunities to help the community they call home, is the kind of collaborative spirit that gels us as a nation.