It was my morning duty today, and the ward had been bustling from the start. Four admissions came in from the Emergency Department before we could even catch our breath. The first patient was in such critical condition that we had to rush him straight to the operating theatre for an emergency procedure.
The other three had sustained head injuries fortunately stable but they would remain in the ward for a couple of days under close observation.While the morning nurse-in-charge handed over her report to the afternoon shift, I prepared a post-operative bed in the central cubicle.
The emergency case from earlier was now on the way up to our ward. Initially, we were told the patient would be admitted to the Intensive Care Unit. However, with only one ICU bed left, the Consultant decided it should be reserved for other cases in greater need.
According to him, this patient could be managed in our High Dependency Unit instead.It had been nearly two years since I graduated as an Enrolled Nurse, and I was grateful for my posting to Singapore General Hospital. Being in a High Dependency Care Unit meant life was rarely dull you were always on the move, alert, ready for anything.SGH had its own rhythm.
Nurses there lived by odd meal times. Our so-called “lunch” often happened at 10:00 a.m., and the official lunch break at noon was, in reality, our rest time—if we got one at all. More often than not, the pace of the ward meant we forwent breaks entirely, surviving on whatever snacks were lying around in the staff room. There was usually something to nibble on—biscuits or cakes from the “ration fund,” which often included treats donated by grateful patients’ families.I never encouraged the practice, but it was hard to turn down such gestures.
The sincerity behind those offerings was undeniable for many, it was their way of saying “thank you” in a language beyond words.One morning, not long after I had helped a patient to the toilet, his daughter called me over. She glanced around, as if making sure no one was watching, then pulled me aside. Before I knew it, she was trying to slip a ten-dollar note into my uniform pocket.I froze, startled. In all my years of nursing, no one had ever tried to give me money for simply doing my job.
My first thought was that this was outright bribery unethical, and certainly against the spirit of our profession. I quickly stopped her and pressed the note back into her hand.But she was persistent, her eyes earnest. I could see she meant no harm in her own way, she was trying to show gratitude for the care her father had received.
Still, I couldn’t accept it.“Look,” I told her gently, “if you appreciate what we’ve done for your father, why not do something for everyone in the ward? Buy some biscuits or snacks and hand them over to our Nursing Officer. The Nursing Officer will make sure it’s shared fairly. You see, we work as a team here. I’m not the only one caring for your father—every nurse plays a part.
There are days when we don’t even manage tea, dinner, or lunch. Having something in the staff room can make a big difference.”She listened, nodded slowly, and smiled. In that moment, I think she understood that gratitude in nursing isn’t about rewarding one person—it’s about recognising the whole team that keeps the ward going.The student nurses shared the same room with us, and I never saw any reason why it should be otherwise.
After all, they were only with us for a short time, and the more they felt part of the team, the better they learned. This time, we had a particularly good batch—helpful, eager to learn, and with a natural sense of initiative.It was nice having them around. They brought a certain energy to the ward—fresh, curious, and often full of questions. Some afternoons, after the rush had eased, I would join a few of them for tea.
They maintained good rapport with us, and I could see they appreciated having an open, approachable environment where they could ask about anything—work-related or otherwise.Around the same time, we also had three newly posted registered nurses. They were still finding their footing in the ward’s fast pace. In SGH, there was a bit of an unspoken rule: if you wanted to survive in the ward, you made friends with the enrolled nurses.
We knew the routines, the shortcuts, the unwritten rules, and—most importantly—the ways to keep the ward running smoothly when things got hectic.It was during this period that I heard a little piece of gossip that made me smile. Apparently, some of the student nurses had nicknamed four of us—Daljeet Kaur, Steven, Malini, and me—the “Gang of Four.”
When I told Daljeet and Malini, we burst out laughing. We decided to adopt the name officially it had a certain ring to it, after all. Only Steven didn’t seem to find it amusing though I suspect he secretly enjoyed being part of the legend.
We had been in the ward much longer than most of the other staff, and the nursing officers often relied on us to keep the daily routines ticking over. We knew every quirk of the ward—where the supplies were hidden, which doctors liked their notes written a certain way, and how to coax the old autoclave into behaving. In many ways, we were the quiet backbone of the place, and the “Gang of Four” title suited us just fine.In many ways, we were the ward’s unofficial “Secretaries.”
The Registered Nurses focused on direct patient care, and our job was to keep everything else running smoothly around them. If student nurses were posted to the ward, they were usually assigned to shadow the Registered Nurses—after all, that’s why they were here: to learn, to practise, to make their rookie mistakes under supervision. We didn’t get in their way.
Instead, we found other jobs that needed doing usually the ones nobody volunteered for but everyone relied on. One of our main responsibilities was the ward reception desk. It might have looked like a small corner with a phone and a stack of forms, but in reality, it was mission control. Handling admissions and discharges—whether from Emergency or the scheduled elective cases was our domain.
By the end of each shift, the Ward Sister would call out, “What’s our census?” and one of us Enrolled Nurses would have the answer ready without missing a beat.We kept track of everything: the total number of patients in the ward, how many came in as emergencies, how many were scheduled admissions, who was transferred in, and who was transferred out.
We knew which patient had been referred to which doctor, and who had actually shown up to see them. We made it our business to know—because if we didn’t, the whole place would grind to a halt.Anything that crossed the threshold of the ward be it a patient, a trolley, or a delivery caught our attention and went into our daily report for the Nursing Officer.
If the dressing sets were running low, the Registered Nurses would come looking for us. If the ward ran out of surgical instruments, someone would call our name before they called Central Sterile Supply. Even running out of admission forms somehow became our problem to solve.We kept good relations with everyone from the stationery store to the Central Sterilization Department and the Surgical Supply team because we knew that a friendly word today could mean an urgent delivery tomorrow.
I sometimes joked that if there were ever an SGH “Best Friend Network,” the Enrolled Nurses would be at the centre of it, with a phone in one hand and a requisition form in the other.
After all, the doctors might have been the brains of the ward, and the Registered Nurses the hands but we, the Enrolled Nurses, were most definitely the memory and the voice. And like any good secretary, we knew everything that went on… and occasionally, more than we were supposed to.
One of the housemen once joked, “If you want to survive in this ward, you’d better be nice to the Enrolled Nurses.” He wasn’t wrong. We knew the routines, the politics, and the little quirks of every staff member. We also knew things before they became official news.It was through one of these quiet “tip-offs” from my fellow Enrolled Nurses that I learned about Dr Tay’s little tricks.
For some reason, he’d taken to leaving apples for me sometimes at the nurses’ station, sometimes in the staff room always just sitting there as if they’d magically been forgotten. I suppose it was his way of trying to be charming, but I wasn’t about to be swayed by fruit.
Before I started at SGH, my father had given me a piece of advice that stuck:
“No hanky-panky at the workplace. Work is work. Be serious about it, and take pride in what you do.”
It wasn’t just words. He said it with that firm, fatherly tone that left no room for misinterpretation. He and my mother had been so proud when I graduated from Nursing School.
They both attended the ceremony an important day, and the first time we ever took a proper family photograph together. There I was, in my crisp white nursing uniform, holding my certificate, with my parents on either side of me.That photograph has stayed with me all these years. It reminds me of where I began, the pride in my parents’ eyes, and the responsibility that comes with wearing that uniform.
And so, no matter how many apples appeared on the counter, my father’s words always came first. Work is work. Pride in the job. No exceptions.Tomorrow morning, I will be on my way to Mount Ophir with Suresh and his friends. I’ve been counting down the days to this trip, hoarding my public holidays and days off just so I could go.
It’s funny before I met Suresh, I was never the outdoors type. Trekking, canoeing, camping… these weren’t in my vocabulary. He changed that. Suresh is a medic in the army. After completing his national service, he signed on for another two years. I love hearing about his military training, especially the parts in Brunei and Taiwan.
He has a knack for storytelling, turning even the toughest exercises into something that sounds like an adventure. Sometimes he brings back tiger prawns and crabs from Brunei—still fresh. Once, he turned up at my door with a bag full of giant tiger prawns, grinning like a schoolboy. My mother nearly jumped out of her skin.
He also taught me how to swim. As an instructor, he was endlessly patient, never laughing at my awkward flailing, just quietly correcting me until I could finally glide across the pool. Our favourite place was the Civil Service Club at Tessensohn Road, where I’d been a member since graduating.
We would meet there for swimming sessions, often joined by his friends. After our swim, we’d stroll down to Apollo Banana Leaf for fish head curry—the best in town, rich and fragrant, with just the right amount of spice.That afternoon was no different.
On my way to the changing room, where our lockers were, I stopped by the staff room to grab something to munch. Just then, the call came through from the central nurses’ station Malini’s voice over the intercom:
“A visitor here wanting to see you.”I walked out, humming to myself, already thinking about tomorrow’s climb, picturing the mist on Mount Ophir’s peak.
But as I reached the entrance of the ward, I froze mid-step.
My eyes locked onto him standing there at the central nurses’ station, smiling as if he had all the time in the world.
