From Ms Tam Siew Wen

Dear Mr Devendran,

Hope this email finds you well and kindly allow me to take this chance to share about my experience with Sree Narayana Nursing Home – Yishun thus far.

My dad, Mr Tam Ai Wah suffered a major stroke last year Aug 22 and it has been a roller-coaster experience since then – imagine the critical condition he was in at that point of time, to being transferred to a community hospital for further rehabilitation till the point of time where the family decided to send our beloved dad to a nursing home for better care management.

As you may have already known, vacancies in NH has always been uptight and we have waited and sourced for many options (even those located in the East) & it has truly been our blessings to be offered a place by SNM Yishun. Let us put it this way, our whole family are totally grateful that my dad is being allocated to SNM and you may find below a timeline of what your team has gone extra to make the NOKs and resident so much more at comfort:

• Head of Social Work & Resident Programmes (NH) Ms Yogeswari Chandrasekaran was the first person whom I spoke to from the NH. In fact, she called me beyond her working hours just to fix the appointment –a small gesture of hers but that leaves me quite impressed by how committed your staff are to the work.

• Confirmed case in my dad’s previous accommodation at CH, SNM didn’t refuse the admission immediately however, they went on to advise us what should be done and what are the precautionary measures to be taken should my dad be successfully admitted to SNM at that point of time. (that includes getting all the PCR done, isolating my dad upon admission at SNM and minimal contact to protect the safety of all other residents which I totally concur with)

• The front-desk receptionist, a Malay lady who has always been so helpful and cheerful in assisting to help my mum who is alone to always fix the appointment to see my dad the following day without fail. She even did up a small little note indicating my mum’s information that are required for the appointment fixing – so that any other receptionist or staff, can also help my mum to fix the appointment based on that. How sweet can that be?

• Nursing staff – they have been excellent, occasionally I will pop by during my dad’s appointment to check-in on him and I’m quite pleased with your nurses and even down to the Home’s driver. Your nurses do not use their own mobile phone even when there’s no other people around or even your driver is very polite and gentle with my dad when using the hydraulic ramp up the vehicle. Safety measures in place, seat belts on – perfect.

• Even during the latest episode where my dad has pneumonia last Monday night, my deepest gratitude to all your nursing staffs who noticed that something’s’ not right with my dad and took his vitals & send him to the hospital immediately without further ado.

His condition deteriorated rapidly over the night & we were told to proceed down to the hospital to see my dad for the last time at 2am in the morning. We rushed down and by dawn, some of our family members are still not able to go in to see my dad as he was at A&E and due to the tightening measures of COVID-19.

We were held back by the care corner staff, indicating that we can each only visit him once a day, limited to 10-15 minutes per time. To the family, it is something we would live in regrets if we don’t get to spend enough time with my dad given his critical condition at that time. I spoke to Ms Yoges and updated about my dad’s condition, and she helped to get in touch with the hospital’s MSW and indeed – the MSW came over and helped to gather everyone together by my dad’s beside for a very short period of 10 minutes, but this is all we can ask for. Nothing beats for my dad to see his whole family together by his bedside, especially so during the COVID days.

Thankfully, my dad remains stable and even though his condition has been going up and down for the past one week; I’m really grateful and thankful that my dad’s being sent in for treatment ASAP as we all know that pneumonia is usually one of the top ‘killer’ in elderly…

Mr Devendran & Ms Yoges – Great team you have there, please extend my heartfelt gratitude to all of your staff working endlessly at all times. Thank you so much for your time & have a great day ahead.

Best Regards,

Tam Siew Wen

Daughter of Tam Ai Wah