This year’s Nurses D & D was such a blast! The theme was casual and many came in their Friday’s best. Just take a look at the organising committee’s outfit below and you know these people know how to have fun

Pauline Tan, the Chief Nursing Officer kicked off the celebrations by sharing with us the latest on nursing , read her speech here

NURSES’ DAY DINNER & DANCE AT MERITUS MANDARIN HOTEL
SPEECH BY CHIEF NURSING OFFICER ON 24 JULY 2009

Thank you for your presence tonight.  Today, we have more than 30 organisations representing the acute, private, intermediate and long term sectors as well as nursing education institutions.  On behalf of the Ministry of Health, we bid one and all our warmest welcome.

The Motley Crew

If you have a chance to look around, you will see some nurses walking around with T-Shirts that read “I Love Friday”. They are the Organising Committee members.  Under Sok Fong’s capable leadership, the Committee has been working tirelessly in the past months to make today a time of enjoyment and fun for all of us. 

You know, the job gets tougher and tougher each year for the Organising Committee.  Each time, they need to reinvent the programme to come up with new ideas and novel entertainment forms.  Their job is to deliver fresh, new and exciting programmes to appease an audience whose membership remains almost constant and if I may add “perpetual”.  By so doing, those who attend the Dinner & Dance year after year will not get bored by seeing the same stuff repeated over and over again. 

Please allow me to introduce a few key persons of the Organizing Committee.  The Chairperson for this year’s Organising Committee is Ms Siti Meriam (NUH).  She is supported by Ms Tamil (NCC) as Secretary and Ms Ten Siew Hwa (TTSH) as Treasurer.  I would like to invite the committee to now stand as we show them our heartfelt appreciation. 

Nurses’ Day Merit Award

Today, 75 nurses will be receiving their Merit Award from Professor Satku, our Guest of Honour for their exemplary performance and outstanding contribution to healthcare. 

Renewing Our Commitment

It has been an eventful year for nursing.  Despite the myriad issues confronting us today such as the current economic volatility, the socio-political upheavals in countries beyond our shores, the H1NI pandemic and so on, nurses will nevertheless continue to remain steadfast as key frontline providers of patient care.  Not only do we stay in the game, we will likewise adjust our plans as needed to ensure that our healthcare system continues to remain robust, efficient and sustainable to weather the storms of competition that beset us.

One of the major efforts that we are collectively working on as a nursing community is the area of “care integration”, which we recognise will be a long process.  We appreciate the significance to move beyond traditional “institution-specific” or “cluster-specific” paradigm to one that encompasses systems-level integration and systemic strategic coordination.  

The nursing leadership is passionate and committed to make fundamental changes.  We are prepared to align our nursing vision with the national agenda.  We know it will require critical cultural adaptation, professional realignment, effective nursing service planning, adaptive leadership and capability development across the board. 

We are making substantial mileage to cement our professional commitment, given our substantive differences and operating philosophies.  We are already actively exploring ways to strengthen and enlarge our synergistic capacity and nursing pie. More will be announced over the coming months when we consolidate and implement our various strategies.

The Context of Healthcare

Health is a highly valued “public good” and is also often viewed as a global right.  Bound by our code of ethics and professional conduct, we owe patients our “duty of care”.  However, as we expand our range and depth of services, we should also be mindful to continually “sharpen our saw” through our strong partnerships within our own nursing community across the healthcare continuum and with the other members of the interdisciplinary teams to define and refine the rules of engagement.  Fundamentally, we all share the same health mandate, the same professional ethos to protect public safety and the same impetus to provide cost-effective quality care amidst finite resources.

Drawing Inner Strength

Going forward, the speed of change is definitely not going to slow down.  Neither will be the expectations placed on us.  On the contrary, we recognise that it will continue to escalate.   As we brace ourselves for the work ahead, let us pace our work so that we do not get weary, but will continue to remain vibrant, renewed, focused and visionary.  We will also not forget to draw strength from our personal life, our relationships and our deeper “yes”. 

To illustrate this, I would like to end by sharing a short excerpt from the bestseller, Tuesdays with Morrie, a personal memoir by Mitch Albom which pointedly encapsulates the work that nurses do in our quiet, unassuming and purist way. 

Pauline with Guest-of-Honour DMS

Nurse Merit Award

This years Nurses Merit Awards were given to 75 nurses from private and public hospitals.

Nurses Idol

For entertainment, there was the Nurses’ Idol, and here is one of the contestants