Today is our last night together in Woodbridge Hospital. Tomorrow we have our class test from 0900 to 1130 hours, and since it’s our final day here, the school will discharge us early. Most of us have already packed, our suitcases lined up like obedient soldiers along the walls, ready to be moved out right after class.
I’m heading back home for the next posting. For School Health Services and Polyclinic, we’ll be on the 8-to-4 shift, and there’s no hostel for SHS trainees. Still Road Polyclinic is just around the corner from my house, I can actually walk there.
I’m looking forward to it, especially the visits to public schools with the community nurses for the regular student physical assessments.I practically grew up around Still Road Polyclinic.
My neighbours will be coming there for treatment and now they’ll see me in a nurse’s uniform. Some of the nurses working there have known me since I was little. This was the place where I got my immunisations, my school health checks… even the dressings for childhood scrapes and cuts. Now, instead of being the patient, I’m returning as a trainee nurse.
This morning, all of us were on morning duty so we could return to the hostel early and “study.” Well, supposedly. Instead, here we are in the hostel lounge, having our farewell party. Even the girls who normally don’t stay in the hostel have bunked in tonight so they can join us.
Our “parties” aren’t the kind you see in the movies they’re a patchwork of titbits, packets of biscuits, crackers, a few bottles of soft drinks, whatever we can grab from the cafeteria. Tonight, we’re also spoiled, a few dishes have been sponsored by the hostel amahs. They’ve been looking after the hostel and, indirectly, looking after us too. It feels right that they’re part of our send-off. The common room smelled faintly of instant noodles and Dettol, the usual.
The Charade Show was on the TV, volume low, the kind of background noise that made it easy to talk without feeling like everyone was listening. Except I knew they were. The Chinese and Indian girls sat sprawled on the sofa, eyes glued to the screen, pretending they weren’t paying attention.
Noraisah wasn’t pretending anything. She was glaring at me over her mug.
“How can you talk like that? You are a Muslim.”
I met her glare steadily. “Look when I make those comments, I’m not thinking of myself as a Muslim. I’m thinking as a person. Minus all the religious attachments we always carry with us. In my opinion, this girl is brave. I don’t know what you and others may think.”
“But it is wrong,” she shot back. “She’s unmarried, she committed a sinful act from our religious point of view. How can you say it’s okay?”
“Did I say it’s okay for her to get pregnant? No. I said what she did after was commendable. She’s already pregnant, there’s nothing much you can say about that now. How many Malay girls get into shotgun marriages? Is that new? No. Do you know why there’s such a high rate of divorce in our community? Girls get married so young just because they got pregnant. And why? Because in our community, we don’t want to talk about sex education. It’s taboo, it’s ‘dirty.’”
I leaned forward, lowering my voice. “Look, she could have aborted. But she didn’t. She carried the baby to term and gave it up for adoption. Do you know how many childless couples are out there? She’s given them the chance to be parents. How is that not good?”
“It’s wrong. What she did is already wrong.”
“To continue the pregnancy is wrong? Aborting it is even worse, am I not correct? That’s murder, isn’t it? So where do we start? It’s like the chicken-and-egg cycle. Shouldn’t we start somewhere to stop it from repeating?”
Noraisah’s eyes narrowed. “You said, ‘I’m not thinking as a Muslim.’ I’m not happy with that statement. We must never forget we are Muslims.”
I took a slow breath. “Let me give you a scenario. Two patients collapse at the same time. One is Muslim, the other is not. You can only save one first. Who do you choose?”
“The Muslim patient.”
“Why? Because they’re Muslim, even if your training tells you the other patient needs immediate attention first? Should decisions about human life run along racial and religious lines?” Her lips pressed tight, but she didn’t answer.
The TV flickered. Onscreen, someone in the Charade Show was flailing their arms to mime a clue. The girls on the sofa laughed a little too loudly, as if the sound could erase the silence between us. The Charade Show was still on, but no one was watching anymore.
Maria and Junita walked in, laughing so hard they could barely stand straight. Junita had one hand over her mouth, Maria had both hands over her face.
“What’s so funny?” one of the Chinese girls called out.
“Maria, tell them,” Junita teased.
“Aiyo… so embarrassing,” Maria mumbled through her fingers.
“Come on lah, what’s embarrassing?” another girl pushed.Junita grinned.
“Fine, I’ll tell. Maria went on a date yesterday.”
“A date? Wah…”
“Not wah. Argh!” Maria groaned. “Never again. I don’t care if he’s a lawyer or a doctor — never again.”
The room leaned in. “Why? Tell us.”
“This guy calls her a few days ago, invites her out,” Junita began. “First stop, McDonald’s. Then, he drives her to the park. Says he wants to ‘get to know her better.’ Starts talking about his training in the UK… and how UK nurses are very open.”
“He must’ve been having a very good time there…” someone quipped.
“Then…” Junita’s voice dropped for drama, “…he unzips his pants and shows her… his thing.”
A chorus of “What thing?” echoed.
“His penis lah,” someone blurted.
Maria’s face was red. “Must you be so direct?”
Laughter erupted, the kind that bent you double.
Then one of the girls said, “Come on, as nurses, we’ve seen it all. Remember Alexandra Hospital Bird Park?”
That shut me up. “Bird Park? Alexandra Hospital has a bird park? What do you all do there?”
“Catch bird lah, what else?” Narindarjeet Kaur deadpanned.
“No, no, we use binoculars to watch the birds flying in and out,” another Chinese girl added, straight-faced. The room roared. One girl had to run to the toilet, clutching her stomach from laughing too hard.
Finally, Narindarjeet wiped her tears. “Okay, okay, Bird Park means the male ward. The bed-ridden patients, especially the elderly. Their beds are along the balcony. Many can’t control their bladder, so instead of a urinal, we hang a plastic bag to collect the urine.”
There was a beat of silence, then another explosion of laughter. “Don’t you use external tubing or something? That’s what we used in SGH,”
I asked.“These are C-class wards,” one of them replied. “You think we’ve got all that? Even if we do, it’s always running out of stock. So we have to innovate. You can place the urinal, yes but once the patient moves, it tips over… and they still get wet.”
She grinned. “Then one genius came up with this idea. Hang a plastic bag. Keeps the patient dry, we collect the diabetic urine on time, and we get an accurate intake-output chart. Everybody happy.”
The room was already giggling, but she went on. “And every morning, before we take report, we ask each other ‘Where are you posted today?’ AHBP.”
“AHBP?” I asked.
She said it slowly, with a smirk. “Alexandra. Hospital. Bird. Park.”
The room erupted. Someone actually fell sideways on the sofa. “Okey, let’s get back to our friend here. We’ve studied all this in A&P, nothing new. So why did this one shock you so much?”
“I think… studying about it, seeing it on patients, that’s different. But when you see one, especially from a lawyer, it’s… shocking.”
“You know what he asked me to do?”
“What?”
“He asked if I wanted to lick it.”
A collective scream filled the lounge. “Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!”
“Ya! That’s exactly what I did, I said ‘Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!’”
“And then?”
“Then he asked me… I mean, I wasn’t going to, but he’s the one who asked… flicking it at me…”
“Flicking?!” Someone was already doubled over.
“… and he asked, ‘What does it look like?’”
“And what did you say?”
“I said the first thing that came into my head.”
“And?”
“Mushroom. I said it looked like a mushroom.”
That was it, the room exploded. Girls were holding their stomachs, falling against each other. Just then Jenny walked in from shopping. Jenny’s a vegetarian.
“What’s this I hear about mushroom? I like mushroom too.”
“Ya, ya, Maria here’s giving us her secret recipe for mushroom soup.”
“I thought it was supposed to be cream of mushroom,” another chimed in.
“I like cream of mushroom too, nice with ginger bread,” Jenny continued, still blissfully unaware what she’d walked into.
I was done for. My stomach ached from laughing.
“Aiyoooooo! Now you girls have ruined it. No more mushroom on my pizza,” Maggie announced.
“Then? Then? What happened next?” someone gasped between giggles.
“He put it back in his pants.”
“Ooooooh, I thought it might have flown away.”
“Oi!” came a scolding voice.“… and then he sent me back to the hostel. Said he’d call again but I’m never seeing him again.”
Just then, the hostel phone rang. Jenny dashed out to answer the phone’s just outside the lounge. A moment later, she poked her head in.
“Maria, a call for you. I think it’s the same guy who rang the other day.”
Maria groaned. “Oh, no… Jenny! This is all your fault. You’re the one who got me into this.”
Jenny blinked. “What did I do? He asked for Ms Mohammad. You’re Maria Binte Mohammad, right? I thought you knew him.”
“No, I don’t know him! What should I do? If I don’t answer, he said he’ll come to the hostel to look for me. Girls, help me!”
One of the seniors spoke up. “I think his modus operandi is simple, just call any nurses’ hostel and try his luck. Ask for a common Malay surname, Ms Mohammad, Ms Abdullah, Ms Kassim, one will click. Then talk nicely, charm them, convince them to meet. If he’s been boasting about nurses in the UK, he’s got the same ideas here.”
Maria shrugged helplessly. “At first I thought it was a prank. One of the senior girls kept saying she wanted to introduce me to someone, so I thought it was her. But when I asked him, he said someone gave him my name and number. He asked me to meet at Plaza Singapura. I was doubtful, so instead I went to Changi Hospital to meet N and the girls there. I told N the whole thing. She warned me it was a trap and told me to go straight back to the hostel. So I did… and then, around 7pm, he turned up at the hostel looking for me.”
“But he didn’t know what you looked like, right?”
“That’s what I thought. I could pretend to be someone else… until Jenny came out and called my name right in front of him.”
Everyone groaned. Jenny winced. “Oops.”
Maria continued. “He asked why I didn’t show up like I promised. I told him I had doubts. He pulled out his graduation album to show me, his law degree from the UK.”
Someone gasped. “Wait, he carries his graduation album in his car? Why?!”
“Exactly! And I’m not even sure it was him. In the photos, he looked younger. But it was almost dark, so hard to tell. Anyway, he was very persistent… so I agreed to go out with him that night.”
“Hang on… let me answer the phone for you,” Narindarjeet Kaur said, striding toward the hostel phone.
We all trailed behind like nosy ducklings.
“Allooooooo,” she began in her thick Punjabi accent. “Who is this? Who? … Oh! Ohhh! Of course I remember you, you’re that lawyer fellow who came to the hostel, right? Dinner at McDonald’s… what’s your name again? … Yes, yes! Rasheed! I remember now. Sorry-lah, I have temporary amnesia, been cramming for our class test tomorrow. So many things to memorise… classification of mental illness, signs and symptoms, all those long English words… makes me crazy also. What? You want to see me again? Yes, yes, no problem, I don’t mind. Sorry about the other day. My voice? Oh, I have sore throat. Why? Because I’ve been shouting. Why shouting? Noooo, you see… we have this patient in the ward who thinks he’s a parade commander, so we had a competition today to see who could give the loudest command. I joined in too….”
We were dying, covering our mouths, trying not to scream with laughter.
“Shhh! He can hear us!” Tamilarasi hissed.
“When? Hmmm… how about tomorrow? My test will be over. What time? Hmmm… 6pm. Yes, 6pm is perfect. See you then. Byeeeee.”
She hung up, grinning like she’d just closed a business deal.
“What are you doing?!” Maria gasped, looking horrified.
“Hang on,” Junita said, “who’s going to be here at 6pm tomorrow?”
We all looked at each other, and then burst out laughing.
“Come on,” someone said, “back to the party. Charades time!”
