Gynae uncontactable due to Singtel service disruption: 'Patients' safety will be compromised'

One of her patients had dangerously high blood pressure.

But the doctor could not be contacted due to a Singtel service disruption on Dec 15.

Stomper Nat said that luckily, she saw the patient in time.

In response to a Stomp query, Singtel spokesperson said: "In the early hours of Dec 15, our Singtel engineers detected an anomaly in some of our subscribers' records, resulting in about 2,000 customers facing some mobile service disruptions.

"Within the same day, we restored full access to mobile services for about half of the impacted customers. All remaining known cases were resolved by Dec 17."

The doctor told Stomp that her mobile service was restored on Dec 18 at 2pm.

"I’m a gynaecologist where I have patients in labour or in A&E," she said. "If I am not contactable, the patients' safety will be compromised and it will waste time for the hospital staff, not to mention cause unnecessary anxiety and stress.

"An example, my patient had dangerously high blood pressure and they couldn’t contact me. Fortunately, I saw the patient in time and instituted the appropriate treatment.

"On top of that, my own mother has heart failure and a blood infection, and the doctors from Singapore General Hospital were unable to call me. 

"The service centre staff were receiving calls from hundreds of angry clients. As of 8pm on Dec 16, there were a thousand affected users calling in angrily to complain. 

"Their only solution was to get a temporary line which I have done. But that only allowed me to call out. It didn’t recitify the situation of people not being able to contact me.

"In fairness, service disruptions from telecoms can and will happen... But because the service disruption was ridiculously and historically long, I feel that it is my public duty to speak up for the affected users and myself, to escalate this matter to a higher level for us to get the much-needed service restored."

Stomper Lawrence also had problems with Singtel service around the same time.

He said: "My new Singtel 5G SIM card activated on Dec 14 was unable to make or receive calls... I had to bear the pain for at least four days."

The Singtel spokesman told Stomp: "Our immediate priority since the start of this issue has been to fully restore mobile services for our impacted customers, while we continue our investigation into the cause of the incident. 

"We advise customers facing mobile service issues to contact us at 1688 so we can address their issues promptly or provide an alternative solution. 

"We deeply apologise for the inconvenience caused and thank our customers for their patience."