Following the Ministry of Manpower’s (MOM) statement in regards to claims made by former DJ Jade Rasif on her foreign domestic worker (FDW)’s quarantine orders, the latter has come forward to stand by her version of the story.
In a Facebook post on Monday (17 May), MOM said that the social media personality’s account was “inaccurate” and her domestic helper has been “assessed to be free from current COVID infection and had not posed a risk to her employer’s family”.
The Indonesian national entered Singapore on 11 April, and was tested for COVID-19 upon arrival, MOM said.
It added that the foreign national was “tested negative on Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) and positive on serology tests, and was assessed to have recovered from an old infection and antibodies against COVID-19”.
As such, she was deemed to be safe and permitted to be discharged from her Stay-Home Notice (SHN) on 13 April.
Following that, the Ministry of Health (MOH) and MOM decided to test the maid again due to the “worsening COVID-19 situation”, and found out that she tested positive on the PCR test, but there were “indications” pointing that this was from an old infection.
Ms Rasif had earlier said that she received a “major COVID-19 scare” after her domestic helper, who arrived from Indonesia, was sent back to Ms Rasif’s house after observing only three to four days of quarantine period at a quarantine centre.
This is despite Ms Rasif paying S$2500 for her to receive her full quarantine duration of 14 days. However, her domestic helper was asked to go for a sudden COVID-19 test a few days later and her test result came out positive. She then was sent back to a quarantine centre.
Replying to MOM’s statement, Ms Rasif said in the comment section that the dates furnished by the Ministry did not match the ones printed on the movement order that was issued, adding that she would be “happy to furnish” MOM with the details so it can make the corrections.
“Firstly, she did test positive, and served a 2 day SHN. Thank you for acknowledging this because a lot of people were accusing me,” she wrote.
In Ms Rasif’s initial post, she also said that she and her family were not ordered to be quarantine despite being in close contact with a COVID-19 positive case.
She went on to note that she was also being investigated by the police for breaching a quarantine order, which she claimed to have not received.
To this, MOM said in its Monday’s statement: “Ms Jade claimed to have been investigated for breach of quarantine. The family were not issued Quarantine Orders (QO), and there could not have been investigations made for breach of quarantine, when no QO was issued in the first place.”
Refuting this, Ms Rasif said that she did receive two calls from the police on breaching quarantine orders and will be “happy to state them for your internal investigations”.
“Thirdly, I have a letter that states the date you took her in. It was days before the 5th. I was only call on the 5th. Although I didn’t state this in my original post (I didn’t want to place any blame), I called MOM and other agencies on the 2nd, 3rd and 4th. I’ll be really happy to show you the quarantine order with the date she was taken in, if you care to reach out,” Ms Rasif noted.
She also expressed that it was “surprising” for the authorities to not include non-infectious cases as part of Singapore’s daily count of COVID-19 positive cases.
“Additionally, there are other families in my situation. They been placed on SHN. I hope you can reach out to me and provide this clear explanation to the affected parties,” Ms Rasif pointed out.
She concluded by asking MOM to reach out to her as she would love to assist the Ministry in its investigations.
MOM admits its mistake, said Ms Rasif
Providing an update on this, Ms Rasif wrote in an Instagram Story on Tuesday (18 May) that MOM has “apologised and admitted that their press release was inaccurate, and made without sufficient research”, after looking at the evidences presented by the former model.
She added, “I have extended the opportunity for us to re-release a joint statement to reveal the truth to the public.”
A FB user, Musa Kazim commented: “Admission of fault is the first step of correction. Their statement is giving the impression that you have not been unembellished in your accounts.”
To this, Ms Rasif wrote: “Well… it’s ok, I’m blessed I have the platform to defend myself. I’m just happy that what I said in substance was true.”
There is however, no update on MOM’s FB post on 17 May to reflect the error.
TOC has reached out to MOM to find out if it is going to release a new press statement highlighting the inaccuracies that it has made in regards to Ms Rasif’s story.
We have yet to receive a reply from the Ministry or any indication that it will reply to our queries.