By Christopher Khoo
The nurse was praying in the Singapore hospital chapel when a rather demanding
and ungrateful patient that she had been caring for also came in. This was during the
Covid pandemic, and although social distancing was the norm, the patient
approached the nurse, grabbed her hand, and to her amazement said, “Thank you
for caring for me. Thank you for bearing with me.”
That poignant moment changed the nurse’s attitude towards healthcare completely
and made her realise that “healthcare was not just about being cured, but it was
about ‘staying’. Staying at the bedside. Staying with the suffering. Staying at the foot
of the cross.”
(Photo: Christopher Khoo)
Franciscan Friar William Lee shared this moving incident during a Mass to mark the
65th anniversary of Mount Alvernia Hospital founded by nuns from the Franciscan
Missionaries of the Divine Motherhood (FMDM). The hospital is the only Catholic
hospital in Singapore.
Referring to the day’s Gospel reading in which the mother of James and John asked
Jesus to give them positions of worldly greatness, he noted that for the Catholic
hospital, “greatness” was not about status but about service.
“Greatness here looks like this. Cleaning a wound gently, listening patiently to a
frightened patient, sitting quietly with a dying person, and offering a smile, even if it’s
at 3 a.m.,” he told some 90 hospital staff and visitors gathered in the chapel on
March 4.
“As we give thanks for 65 years, may we renew the founding vision of the FMDM
Sisters: simplicity, humility, compassion and joyful service. And may this hospital
continue to be not only a place of medical excellence, but a place where the Gospel
is lived quietly, bedside by bedside,” said Friar Lee.
The Mass also saw the hospital’s leadership team lighting candles given to them,
symbolising how Christ’s light accompanies the hospital’s mission in its care for the
sick and the suffering.
The celebration continued after Mass with the elderly FMDM nuns, some in
wheelchairs, cutting the 65th anniversary cake and taking part in a singing session
together with hospital staff.
Mount Alvernia Hospital is the only not-for-profit general acute tertiary care private
hospital in Singapore. With 340 beds, it is supported by over 370 on-campus
specialist doctors and 1,480 accredited doctors. Dedicated clinical pastoral care
forms part of the hospital’s holistic care for patients and their families regardless of
background or belief.
The hospital traces its roots to 1949 when three young FMDM nuns, who were
professionally trained in healthcare, arrived in Singapore from Surrey, England.
They came at the request of the British colonial government who were short on
medical facilities and professionals, and facing a post-war population that was
exceedingly undernourished and suffering from tropical diseases.
The Sisters were posted to a local hospital and quickly set about caring for
tuberculosis patients. They also cared for lepers at another institution and
established a nursing school in 1950.
By the early 1950s, tuberculosis in Singapore had been greatly reduced and the
Sisters felt it was time to meet the needs of the people in a different way. Their
vision: a well-planned, professionally managed hospital where every patient would
be offered comfort, solace and the best possible medical care.
Pooling their salaries as government nurses, they started a building fund and began
canvassing for donations, often going door-to-door.
By October 1956, the Sisters managed to raise enough to acquire a seven-acre
parcel of land along a hilly stretch of Thomson Road. Construction began in 1957,
and in 1961, the 60-bed Mount Alvernia Hospital received its first patients.
The hospital was entirely staffed by nuns who played the roles of nurse, midwife,
physiotherapist, laboratory technician, pharmacy dispenser, radiographer, cook and
even ambulance driver. In 1987 the Sisters handed over the running of the hospital
to a lay management team.
Over the years, many distinguished visitors have visited the hospital. They included
Mother Teresa and Singapore’s First Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew.
(Christopher Khoo is a Singapore-based freelance journalist and educator).
