The Singapore SEA Games Organising Committee (SINGSOC) has apologised for the confusion that led to many spectators being locked out of the 28th SEA Games closing ceremony at the National Stadium on Tuesday.
While SINGSOC acknowledged it could have done better in managing the situation, it rejected suggestions that tickets to the closing ceremony were oversold.
In a statement on the SEA Games Facebook page yesterday, SINGSOC said it had invited groups of Team Nila volunteers and voluntary welfare organisations to the event based on the turnout from the opening ceremony on June 5, where about 30 percent of ticket holders did not turn up.
SINGSOC added: “After accounting for these complimentary tickets, we would like to confirm that there were still sufficient seats in the stadium for all those who came for the event (closing ceremony).”
“There are some very clear lessons to be drawn from this experience that did not surface during the opening ceremony, like how to have better informed everyone on arrival timings, and how to better manage the rapid build-up of crowds and the ushering at entry gates,” SINGSOC said. “We acknowledge that we should have done a lot better.”
While it is unclear exactly how many spectators, most of whom had purchased tickets — which cost up to S$40 each — were locked out of the closing ceremony, it is believed to be in the hundreds.
They were prevented from entering the stadium as many of those already inside had waited around the inner concourse area after they failed to locate their seats due to the stadium lights having gone dark for the ceremony.
But safety concerns meant the gates had to be closed to prevent the congestion from worsening if more were allowed in. That led to tempers boiling over, with some shouting at the volunteers for being unable to help the situation.
SINGSOC also said they could have accommodated those at the stadium if there was more time to seat them, but a surge over a short period just before the ceremony started eventually led to the situation.
The organisers also clarified that the last segment of the show, which saw Dutch DJ Ferry Corsten playing his set from a console suspended from the National Stadium’s retractable roof as spectators entered the field below, was pre-planned and co-ordinated with stadium operators, crowd safety and security personnel.
SINGSOC also stressed that the safety limit on the number of people on the pitch was not breached.
Those affected can contact SINGSOC at https://feedback.sportsingapore.gov.sg/new_feedback.aspx or 1800 344 1177 during office hours from 9am to 6pm on Mondays to Fridays to process the refunds and follow up with service recovery.
The registration of children for admission to Primary One (P1) classes next year will start on July 2 until Aug 27.
Children born between Jan 2, 2009 and Jan 1, 2010 (both dates inclusive) have to be registered at this year’s P1 Registration Exercise for admission to primary school next January.
All primary schools will open for registration from 8am to 11am and from 2.30pm to 4.30pm from Mondays to Fridays during the registration period.
The cohort size of 2016 is comparable to that of 2015 and there will be sufficient school places for all eligible P1 pupils, said the Ministry of Education in a press release on Thursday (Jun 18).
Three new primary schools – Oasis Primary, Punggol Cove Primary and Waterway Primary – will be taking in students from 2016 and will open for P1 registration this year.
Details on the list of primary schools and vacancies available, including a list of registration centres for new schools, can be found on the P1 Registration Exercise website.
A reader has informed TRE that a bunch of foreign-graduate dentists on conditional registration in Singapore are doing dental work in Little India without any apparent supervision.
According to its website, Little India Dentist has a team of 4 dentists [Link]:
Dr Nivedita Seerpi, DDS (USA)
Dr Mansoor Walipoor, BDS (Adelaide)
Dr Yushmee Ramburrun, BDS (Bristol)
Dr Katy Kennedy, BDS (Dundee)
All dentists working in Singapore are regulated by the Singapore Dental Council (SDC), a body constituted under the Dental Registration Act (Chapter 76).
Under this Act, the Council is empowered in Singapore [Link]:
to approve or reject applications for registration as a dentist;
to issue certificates of registration and practising certificates to registered dentists;
to make recommendations to the appropriate authorities on the courses of instructions and examinations;
to make recommendations to the appropriate authorities for the training and education of registered dentists;
to determine and regulate the conduct and ethics of registered dentists; and
generally to do all such acts, matters and things as are necessary to be carried out, or which the Council is authorised to carry out, under the Dental Registration Act.
Searching through the records of SDC [Link], the 4 foreign-graduate dentists are found to have only “Conditional Registration” status. That is to say, none of the dentists in Little India Dentist has full registration:
TRE also found that, except for Dr Nivedita Seerpi, none of the other 3 has registered their “Place of Practice” as Little India Dentist. The 3 have instead registered their place of practice elsewhere:
Dr Mansoor Walipoor – Nuffield Dental Kovan
Dr Yushmee Ramburrun – Nuffield Healthcare Private Limited
Dr Katy Kennedy – Q & M Dental Centre Pte Ltd
What is “Conditional Registration”?
Under section 14A(4) of the Dental Registration Act, dentists under “conditional registration” need to be supervised by a “fully registered Division I dentist” working in the same practice for a specified period (at least 2 years).
The SDC website [Link] further states that dentists under “conditional registration” need to work for a specified period that is equivalent to 2 years full-time of minimum 35 working hours per week under the supervision of a fully registered dentist approved by the Council.
The supervisor must submit a supervisory report on the dentist to the Council every 6 months.
Dentists under conditional registration may apply for conversion to “full registration” after 2 years but this is subject to the Council’s approval.
work in the same clinic premises as his/her supervisee
In fact, SDC is quite particular about having full supervision over dentists on conditional registration:
Please note that the supervisory report will determine if the conditionally registered dentist is able to perform his/her duties satisfactorily. The supervisor should exercise due diligence when completing the report for the dentist under his/her charge. Please complete every section of the report. In the event that a supervisor is unable to continue his supervisory duties for the full period of conditional registration, he/she should inform Council immediately and Council will write to the clinic to re-nominate a new supervisor.
SDC is so particular about having dentists on conditional registration supervised by a fully registered dentist that they issued a reminder to all dentists in January [Link]:
Although the risk is small, patients are known to have died from dental treatment gone wrong.
Finally, a criterion for conditional registration requires the dentist to have been approved for employment in Singapore as a dentist in any hospital or other institution or dental practice approved by the Council.
It’s not known if Little India Dentist has been approved by SDC to employ the 4 foreign-graduate dentists who currently hold conditional registration status.
In any case, Little India Dentist does not appear to have any fully registered Division I dentist at the clinic to supervise the 4 conditionally registered dentists.
On Sunday (14 Jun), TRE reported that 4 foreign-graduate dentists on conditional registration in Singapore are doing dental work in Little India without any apparent supervision (‘Foreign-graduate dentists working illegally in SG?‘).
The 4 dentists are practising at a dental clinic at Kerbau Road called Little India Dentist (www.littleindiadentist.com.sg).
According to its website, Little India Dentist had a team of 4 dentists:
Dr Nivedita Seerpi, DDS (USA)
Dr Mansoor Walipoor, BDS (Adelaide)
Dr Yushmee Ramburrun, BDS (Bristol)
Dr Katy Kennedy, BDS (Dundee)
TRE did a screen capture of their webpage before publishing the article on Sunday (14 Jun), showing the 4 foreign-graduate dentists listed on their website:
Here’s another screen capture of their home page showing the link to their dentist information page. This was also captured on Sunday:
Searching through the records of Singapore Dental Council [Link], the 4 foreign-graduate dentists are found to have only “Conditional Registration” status. That is to say, none of the dentists in Little India Dentist has full registration.
TRE also found that, except for Dr Nivedita Seerpi, none of the other 3 has registered their “Place of Practice” as Little India Dentist. The 3 have instead registered their place of practice elsewhere:
Dr Mansoor Walipoor – Nuffield Dental Kovan
Dr Yushmee Ramburrun – Nuffield Healthcare Private Limited
Dr Katy Kennedy – Q & M Dental Centre Pte Ltd
Under section 14A(4) of the Dental Registration Act, dentists under “conditional registration” need to be supervised by a “fully registered Division I dentist” working in the same practice for a specified period (at least 2 years). The supervisor must submit a supervisory report on the dentist to the Council every 6 months.
work in the same clinic premises as his/her supervisee.
Since the website does not show any fully registered Division I dentists working at Little India Dentist, it is therefore assumed that the clinic does not have any fully registered Division I dentists to supervise the 4 conditionally registered dentists.
Today (16 Jun), TRE has discovered that Little India Dentist has quietly taken down the “Our Team” webpage with dentist information. The “Our Team” link has also been quietly removed from their home page:
As scenes of overcrowding outside the Sports Hub yesterday evening for the closing ceremony of the SEA Games went viral, questions need to be asked on whether the Singapore SEA Games Organising Committee (SINGSOC) have done all it could to make it better, or did it instead compound the problem.
Agitated ticket holders queuing to enter the stadium to watch the closing ceremony might not have realised that the problem went beyond missing a show. The capacity crowd could have turned into a disaster if there was a fire or stampede on site.
There were reportedly thousands of such ticket holders who were sweating in the crowded confines. SINGSOC had since issued an apology and clarification, indicating that the crowd was due to an entry issue.
“As a significant proportion of the spectators were at the gates just before the start of the ceremony, there was a need to adjust entry gates and seating arrangements to enable them to be seated as quickly as possible. Consequently, some gates had to be closed for safety reasons.”
However, the problem might be due to there being too many tickets issued compared to the capacity for the Sports Hub, as some disappointed ticket holders have alleged.
TOC understands that SINGSOC was unhappy with the number of no-shows at the opening ceremony, as many seats were clearly visible on national television. In order to avoid a repeat of the incident, SINGSOC supposedly decided to over-sell the tickets for the closing ceremony.
Over-selling tickets is not something alien to event companies. It is a pretty common practice to over-issue tickets by about 5% in the form of complimentary tickets, in order to pack venues.
But the question becomes one of exactly how much SINGSOC over-issued, if it did indeed do so.
From pictures and eyewitness accounts, a conservative estimate of the number of people waiting outside the stadium would hover between 10,000 and 15,000.
Image from an attendee stuck outside the stadium during the SEA Games closing ceremony.
The Sports Hub has a maximum capacity of 55,000, and factoring in seats that need to be allocated for display and participants, it would likely be configured to hold about 40,000 seated ticket holders for the closing ceremony.
In other words, if SINGSOC did indeed over-issue tickets, they did it at 25% to 35% more seats than the stadium can hold in full capacity, a far cry from the 5% standard.
Would the Sports Hub had been able to absorb such excess capacity? As a video by Channel NewsAsiashows, there does not seem to be extra room for the thousands who were stuck outside the gate, but who would technically have an empty seat in the stadium.
Images from various online sources also indicate that there was very little spare capacity inside the stadium to match the crowds waiting outside, although there were a few empty block visible.
Capacity crowd for the SEA Games closing ceremony.
Who has the legit ticket?
The overissuing of tickets were mainly in two forms – complimentary tickets for Sponsors and free entry for SEA Games Volunteers. The former might include entities like GP Battery and NTUC, while that the latter could access the Sports Hub by flashing their accreditation passes (a pass given to all volunteers), TOC was told.
Paying patrons mostly bought their tickets before the start of the SEA Games itself, as the seats were sold out quickly.
The problem arising from yesterday evening also give reason the question how paying patrons are guaranteed their seats. It is understood that those who bought tickets had designated seats by blocks. However, comments online suggests that such designated seats were not reserved fro them as they rightly expected it to be.
Who were occupying the seats of paying fans? Was it complimentary ticket holders from sponsors and partners, volunteers, or was there excess capacity sold?
Disregard for safety, poor decisions on capacity
The crowd waiting outside the stadium was clearly agitated from the humidity and the crowd, from social media postings. There were also accounts of a lot of pushing and shoving going on in the crowd and many like the elderly, the disabled and the young were helplessly caught in the scrum.
It was also reported that those who managed to get in ended up sitting on the stairway to watch the show. In the event of an emergency, a stampede could have led to serious injuries and death, not only within the stadium, but among the crowds stuck outside.
Pertinent questions to ask might include whether SINGSOC has consulted Sports Hub management about the ability of the new stadium to accommodate such an expanded capacity. TOC understands that such consultations did not take place.
An expert in event management TOC spoke to shared that any decision to over-cater for event seats need to take into account the realities of the ground, and an inability to do so reflects lack of competency.
“When managing such long haul multi sports events, it is important to feel the pulse on the ground so that organisers are aware of public sentiment towards the games. This will help in understanding whether the public are interested/or will attend events. SINGSOC should have realized that public participation for the games was high, and hence the likelihood of attendance at the closing ceremony was likely to be high.”
About SINGSOC
SINGSOC is the steering committee for the 28th SEA Games. It’s a team of 20 headed by Minister Lawrence Wong.
In addition to Minister Lawrence Wong, SINGSOC also features 2 other Ministers – Mr Masagos Zulfiki and Mr Teo Ser Luck and 2 Senior Ministers of State – Ms Indranee Rajah and Ms Josephine Teo.
In its post-event statement, SINGSOC offered a full refund but as evident from the comments, many are still unsatisfied. Questions also remain about how SIGSOC would be able to identify legitimate tickets in order to effect such a refund.
There was also no clarity so far about how it was possible for thousands to be stuck outside the stadium, beyond the explanation of a congestion at the gate.
TOC has sent a number of queries to SINGSOC to seek clarifications on whether tickets were over-issued and how the capacity for the closing ceremony was managed. At time of publishing, SINGSOC has not responded.
