Service Learning Project @ Tan Tock Seng Hospital (TTSH) 2013
Post by Lim Shi Ying and Joshua Ian Lim.
On a weekly basis, a group of warm hearted GATE students have been going down to TTSH to visit the patients mainly in Ren Ci Hospital.
The patients in Ren Ci Hospital are mostly the elderly who suffer from chronic illnesses and hence they have been staying in the hospital for quite a number of months or even years. According to the TTSH Volunteer Management Group, some of the patients have very few visits from their family members and hence we hope that our weekly visits can help to establish a loving and warm environment in the hospital for them.
I still recall that on our first visit to the wards, we were all quite shy and didn’t know how to approach any of the patients. However, the old lady lying frail on her hospital bed greeted me with a smile and that made me take the first step out to speak to her, just asking her about her life, how she was feeling, her illness and her family. In fact, it didn’t feel like a volunteering session but rather a session where even I get to share with her about my life, the school I study in and what I do in my free time. It suddenly dawned on me that I was there, not as a volunteer, but rather as a companion for the patients who would talk to them and interact with them every week amidst her mundane stay at the hospital.
Over the next few weeks volunteering at the wards, we found that our interaction skills have improved and the patients (even the shy ones) were gradually opening up to us. We also realised that we could help out with the distribution of food during lunch time and help to feed the patients too. When we fed the patients, it also allowed for more interaction with them because they seemed more willing to open up to us after that. For instance, just by asking them “好不好吃？”while feeding them, they would start to talk about how they miss their home-cooked food or even tell us some of the food they used to eat in the past. It gave us a glimpse into their life when they were young and that made the interaction experience a lot warmer and closer. J
Apart from volunteering weekly at the TTSH wards, some of our volunteers also take part in ad-hoc projects organized by TTSH. For instance there was a Christmas Fundraising Sale where volunteers helped to sell Soap Opera’s exquisite handcraft glycerin soaps and essential oil soaps at the TTSH’s charity booth located in Orchard Hotel. Part of the sales proceeds went to helping the TTSH Community Charity Fund to help women suffering from HIV/AIDS better cope with their daily lives.
On the whole, I think all of the volunteers have been doing a great job interacting with the patients even though it is the first time befriending the elderly for many of them. Ultimately, we hope to be able to pass this project down to our juniors to ensure that the patients continue to get companions to talk to weekly as well as to ensure a continued collaboration btw HCI and TTSH.
