I did something out of the ordinary last night. Maybe I was feeling adventurous, maybe I just needed something new. On impulse, I decided to try a floor duty shift at Mount Elizabeth Hospital.
Mount Elizabeth had its own private nursing agency, and I’d recently signed up with them. Not for the money, though everyone knew private shifts paid well but for the experience. I wanted to know what it was like to work inside one of the most expensive hospitals in Singapore, right in the heart of Orchard Road.
Officially opened in 1976, co-owned by a Singaporean and an Indonesian businessman, and by June 1985 bought over by National Medical Enterprises from the US. Everything about it was different from the wards I knew at SGH.
They even had a Royal Suite reserved for the Brunei Royal Family, the kind of detail you only read about in the papers. I found myself wondering: would nursing be different here? Would patients treat you with more respect just because they were paying more? Or would it be worse, the sense of entitlement thicker than the carpets?
All I knew was, stepping into Mount Elizabeth that night felt like stepping into another world. One foot still in the chaos of SGH, the other testing out this polished, perfumed universe of private healthcare.
How does it all happen?
I met up with an ex–roommate of mine, now a Registered Nurse working permanent nights in the Acute Medical Unit at Mount Elizabeth. We were from the same PAN batch and had known each other since our Toa Payoh days.
After Toa Payoh, our paths split: I went back to SGH while she was posted to Woodbridge Hospital, later to Changi until graduation. After completing our training, I returned to SGH, General Surgery Unit, while she went back to Woodbridge.
The last time I had seen her was at our graduation ceremony. She was among the brighter ones, selected for Student Nurse Training after just one year as an Enrolled Nurse. Back then, the usual pathway was rigid: all of us started as Pupil Assistant Nurses, a 2-year course, then worked at least 3 years as Enrolled Nurses before even being considered for Student Training.
That was the “normal” process for average students like myself. But in 1981, everything changed. Those who scored distinctions during PAN training could be fast-tracked just one year of ward experience before moving on.
For the rest of us, our future depended heavily on whether our ward Nursing Officer recommended us. Without that, we remained Enrolled Nurses until retirement. That was the reality.We lost touch after graduation, each consumed by our own commitments.
I didn’t bother to maintain contact, life in the ward was demanding enough. And then one day, years later, in the most unlikely place, we met again. Not in a ward or a hospital corridor, but in a workshop hall at Singapore Press Holdings. A creative writing workshop.She had walked in looking just as surprised as I was.
We laughed at the coincidence. She said she was curious about the Golden Point Award and wanted to learn more about it. As for me, I had come with three articles ready for submission chasing the idea that maybe, just maybe, my words could win me a place in that world.It felt almost symbolic: we had started together in the same nursing hostel, parted ways into different wards, and here we were, converging again in a room full of writers.
Nursing might have been our shared foundation, but it seemed writing was another unexpected thread weaving us back together. How’s the experience like? Different. Very different. Mount Elizabeth is another world altogether compared to SGH. The patients are different many of them Indonesians, often from wealthy families, or part of the expatriate community.
There are locals too, of course, but they’re mostly those who can afford the private rates. Everything here feels quieter, calmer, almost polished, though beneath the surface it’s just as demanding. And the doctors? I asked my old pal, since she seems to know most of them.
“All consultants,” she said with a grin. “Some of them I knew as young Medical Officers back in the government hospitals. Now look at them, private practice, sharp suits, and their own clinics.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. It felt like meeting classmates years later and realizing they’ve all become head prefects overnight. The hierarchy is clearer here, the authority heavier. The doctors are used to being treated with deference, almost like celebrities. Patients call them professor or specialist in hushed tones, and the bills match the reverence.
Back at SGH, everything is louder, rougher, raw. You see the heartland of illness construction workers, hawkers, taxi drivers, housewives, sometimes even your own neighbors. Patients don’t always know the doctor’s name they just want the pain to stop, the wound to heal.
At Mount Elizabeth, the atmosphere is more like a luxury hotel with a medical wing. Linen sheets, polished floors, staff trained to smile.It wasn’t just the building or the patients that were different. It was the whole rhythm of the place.
At SGH, we hustle, we improvise, we run short of dressings and chase for supplies. At Mount Elizabeth, supplies arrive before you even realize you need them. At SGH, the patients’ families bring their own food in plastic bags at Mount Elizabeth, meals come plated, almost gourmet.For me, it was an eye-opener.
Nursing is nursing, no matter where you are, the skills, the compassion, the long hours. But here I realized how much the context shapes the work. In SGH, we are soldiers in the trenches. At Mount Elizabeth, we are attendants in a palace. Both have their challenges. Both, in their own ways, are exhausting.
Our first night went on smoothly enough. Another Health Assistant was on duty with us, and she patiently orientated me to the layout of the ward and the routines. It wasn’t nearly as hectic as SGH, of course. Fewer call bells, no frantic shouts from emergency admissions.
After report, she suggested we do the evening round “getting acquainted and introducing ourselves to the patients,” she said. We started with the single rooms. The first one: an Indian man standing casually by the balcony, flanked by three friends, an Indian, a Chinese, and a Eurasian all puffing away like it was a gentlemen’s club rather than a hospital room.
“Now, why is it you look so familiar to me?” my colleague asked lightly, leaning on the door frame. She didn’t even bother to step inside. We stood back as instructed. “No need to enter,” she whispered to us. “He’s a regular. Doesn’t need much nursing attention.”
The man exhaled smoke, looked at her, and grinned. “Because I’m the one who put one of your people in jail.” The whole balcony erupted with laughter. My colleague just nodded, completely unfazed.
“Hmm. That explains it. Alright then, gentlemen, enjoy your evening,” she said briskly, closing the door. Out in the corridor, I couldn’t help but ask.
“What was that all about? Who did he put in jail?”
She shrugged, as if it were an everyday occurrence.
“He’s referring to that case in the papers, the registered nurse who got convicted for negligence.”
“Oh.” I didn’t say more, but the air hung heavy. In SGH, you might get patients who complained, even shouted, but rarely did they wield their power so casually.
Here, at Mount Elizabeth, the patients carried their status like armor, a reminder that we weren’t just treating bodies, we were managing egos, reputations, and sometimes even scandals.
Later that night, after the rounds were done and the ward had quieted, we settled at the nurses’ station. My colleague was bent over her reports, pen scratching steadily against paper. That’s when he appeared, the same man from the balcony earlier.He strolled up casually, as though he owned the place, and greeted me first.
“Hello.” I returned the greeting politely, though his eyes barely lingered on me before turning to her. His real business was with her. I pretended to be busy, flipping through the chart in front of me, but my ears were sharp. They spoke in low tones, in a language I couldn’t quite place. It wasn’t Malay, nor was it Chinese. And though I’d often heard Tamil on the MRT, the musical cadence, the sharper inflections this wasn’t quite the same either.
It rolled differently, thicker, with pauses that carried meaning I couldn’t catch. My colleague responded with the same fluency, her voice calm and steady. They kept their eyes locked on each other as though they were speaking in riddles, some code I wasn’t meant to understand.
I sat there, quiet, pretending to scan through notes, but inside my mind was racing. What language is that? And what are they talking about, here in the middle of the night, in the quiet of this ward? For the first time, I realized Mount Elizabeth wasn’t just a hospital. It was a world of its own, full of private conversations, hidden ties, and secrets I had only just begun to glimpse.
“How do you know him?” I asked once he had strolled back to his room, leaving behind only the faint smell of cigarette smoke and that sly smile. She didn’t look up from her report.
“Here. He comes in not because he’s sick. This is his rest. Every month or so, he ‘gets admitted,’ stays for a few days. You’ll see, plenty of men will come in the evenings to ‘visit.’ Always men.”
I frowned. “But the way you asked him earlier… it was like you didn’t know him.”
She chuckled softly, tapping her pen against the paper. “Of course I know him. He’s a regular here. I always ask the same thing, and he always gives me a different answer depending on what’s in the papers that week.”
“Why?”She looked at me then, a glint of amusement in her eyes.
“Because that’s the game we play. He pretends, I pretend. We both know what it is, but we keep the performance going. It’s safer that way.”
The second night was much the same quiet, unhurried, the hum of machines softer than what I was used to in SGH. The same man was still there, but we didn’t step into his room this time, nor did he wander out to our nurses’ station. Men came and went instead, slipping in silently, raising a hand in greeting as they passed. She would answer with a nod, nothing more. We never spoke about them.
“Some things are best left as they are,” she’d told me before, and I knew enough now to leave it at that. Later in the shift, I was introduced to the Night Manager, Sister Lee. She hadn’t been around the previous night, ICU had kept her tied up.
“Full house,” she said with a weary smile. “Almost every patient on a respirator. We’re short of hands.” Even the nursery was bursting. At feeding times she and another Night Sister had to roll up their sleeves, bottle in hand, helping the young nurses feed rows of squirming babies.
When things were desperate, staff from the quieter wards would come across to lend a hand.
“You don’t mind getting pulled out for baby duty, do you?” she asked me, half-joking. Our third night was busier, but nothing we couldn’t manage.
By 3 a.m., the ward had settled into its usual hush. Patients slept, monitors hummed their steady rhythm, and we sat at the station updating our reports. Then, without warning, she pushed her chair back and stood. Her face was unreadable as she said quietly, almost to herself, “Somebody here is not well… and not telling us. We must find that person.”I looked up from my notes, startled.
“Which patient?” I asked. She didn’t answer. Instead, she repeated the words with the same certainty, as though it wasn’t a guess but a fact: “Somebody here is not well… and not telling us.”
I frowned, confused. “How would you even know that?”She didn’t respond directly. Instead, she wheeled the chart trolley closer, pulling open the files. One by one, she flipped through them quickly, her eyes skimming vital signs, intake-output balances, notations scribbled by the day staff. She moved with a strange intensity, as though listening to something only she could hear.Then she stopped. Pulled out five files. Laid them in front of her like cards on a table.
“These people,” she said, her voice firm now. “One of them.” I leaned over the files she had separated. All cardiac cases.
The first was an Indonesian man, admitted just yesterday. His telemetry leads trailed to a portable unit by his bed, transmitting every beat to the ICU across the hall. Another patient, already a week into admission, was wired the same way.Telemetry our lifeline for patients like these. Developed for continuous monitoring of those with arrhythmias, or the lurking shadow of sudden cardiac death.
The ICU staff had a dedicated console that caught every spike, every pause. If anything went wrong, they would be the first to know.She called through to ICU, her voice clipped.
“Check the telemetry for these three.” A pause. Then the reply: stable, all three. No changes in the past eight hours. She shook her head. “No. Something’s wrong. We need to look at them again.”
There was a strange certainty in her voice that unsettled me. I watched as she flipped back through their case notes, pulling out lab results electrolytes, cardiac enzymes, chest X-rays, CT scans. Her eyes scanned faster than I could follow. Then she pushed two of the files aside, leaving three.
“Out of these three,” she said slowly, her finger resting on the charts, “one of them is not well. And not telling us.”
My mouth went dry. “Okay… but how do we find out?” She didn’t answer immediately. She simply stood, her expression hardening, and started down the corridor. I rose quickly and followed, my shoes clicking softly against the polished floor.
Our first stop: the two-bedded room on the left of the nurses’ station. We went first to the Singaporean Chinese gentleman in the two-bedder closest to the station. He stirred as she wrapped the cuff around his arm, opened his eyes briefly, then slipped back into sleep once he realized it was only us.
His pulse was steady. His pressure, normal. The next room was much the same, another elderly Chinese man, still and quiet beneath his blanket. His breathing was deep and even.It was the third patient, at the far end of the ward, who broke the pattern.
He was already awake, struggling to push himself upright.“I need to go toilet,” he mumbled. She moved quickly to his side, helping him swing his legs over the edge of the bed. But before he could steady himself, his whole body jolted violently. His arms flailed, his eyes rolled upwards, and he began to shake uncontrollably.
“Fit!” she snapped, lowering him back. We rolled him onto his side as his body convulsed, his lips frothing. Her hand pressed against his neck, her eyes sharp.Then her voice cut through the room like a blade.
“No, not a fit. It’s his heart. Heart attack!”
“Get the emergency trolley. Now!” I sprinted. By the time I wrestled it back into the room, she was already on top of the bed, straddling the man’s chest, her hands locked and pumping down hard.
The red alarm button glared against the wall, sirens in the distance already echoing down the corridor. Within minutes, the code red team burst in, ICU nurses and the on-call doctor, moving as one, tubes and monitors spilling from their arms.
We stepped back, hearts pounding, as they swept in to take over. Working in a high-dependency ward, resuscitations had almost become routine for me at least one a week. But this one felt different. It stayed with me.
Over breakfast at McDonald’s, I finally asked her, “How did you know? How did you know that patient was about to collapse?”
She stirred her coffee slowly, eyes lowered. “I don’t know.”
“But you do know,” I pressed. “You said it yourself: somebody here is not well, and not telling us. You narrowed it down from twenty-nine patients to five… then three… and from those three, it was him. That’s not coincidence.”
“All I can say,” she sighed, “is that something inside me knew. You can call it intuition if you want.”
I leaned back, crossing my arms. “Intuition? That’s too simple. I don’t buy it. There has to be more. Why won’t you just say it?”
Her eyes flicked up at me sharply. “It’s not that I don’t want to. I’m just… careful. These things aren’t easy to explain. And I don’t want to be a laughing stock.”
“Do I laugh at you?” I asked softly. “Think about it. You’ve told me plenty of things before some so wild I could barely digest them but I never laughed. I listened. I remembered.”
Her lips twitched, somewhere between a frown and a smile. “Alright, alright. Don’t get offended. I’ll explain but only if you’re open to it. To most people, this will sound… nuts.”
“Try me,” I leaned forward. “We’ve known each other since PAN. You’re nuts, of course most of our batch says so. But hey, we were together in Toa Payoh hostel. Short as it was, I know you. And you know I still keep a journal. This will go in there if it’s okay with you.”
She was silent for a long while, stirring her coffee until the bubbles vanished. Then she said quietly, “Promise me one thing. No names. Not while I’m alive. Once I’m gone dead, gone, then you can say whatever you want. Mention whatever names you like. But not now. Not when I’m here. Promise?”
I hesitated, then nodded. “Okay. A promise. No names. But what if I die first?”
Her lips curled in a shadow of a smile. “Then I’ll deal with it when the time comes.”
We sat in silence, the hum of McDonald’s morning crowd all around us, as if the world was too ordinary to hold what was about to be said.I drew in a breath, clicked the tape recorder on beneath the table.
“Alright. Let me ask you again how do you know something is going to happen?”I watched her face carefully. She glanced at the recorder, then at me, as if weighing how much of her world she was willing to let me into.
