Many newly-diagnosed patients, and patients who needed to decide if they should get the surgery, had lost the regular opportunity to learn first-hand from Patient Ambassadors about their lived experience with an ostomy.
This was yet another setback forced upon us by the Pandemic. In May 2021, the Ostomy Association of Singapore teamed up with the nurses in Ward 47 in Singapore General Hospital to pilot POSH – the Patients’ Online Support Hub.
Patients recovering in the ward, those who wanted to find out more before the surgery, and their caregivers could log in to a Zoom session and talk to Patient Ambassadors to find out more about coping with the condition on a day-to-day basis, amongst other things.
The POSH sessions have since been extended to the other hospitals in the SingHealth cluster. It was heartening to see the children and grandchildren of the patients helping their loved ones to manage the technical aspect by helping them to log in to these sessions.
Making full use of technology, the sessions have also given the opportunity for the Patient Ambassadors and members of the Colorectal Support Groups in both NCCS-SGH and CGH to touch base and meet online on a weekly basis, with the privacy of the one-on-one sharing maintained through the use of breakout rooms.
Any holistic healing process must include the psychosocial component, and the OAS is happy to be able to play a role to support the hospitals in this respect.
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