Indian-Origin Nurse Conferred with President’s Award in Singapore

An Indian-origin nurse in Singapore, Kala Narayanasamy was chosen for the President’s Award for nurses given to the medical professionals for serving on the frontline during the COVID 19 pandemic. As per the details released by the Health Ministry of Singapore, Narayanasamy was one of the five nurses to be honoured with this award.

Each recipient of the award has been given a trophy, a certificate signed by the President and SGD 10,000 ($7228) as part of this.

Why this award?

Kala Narayanasamy has been bestowed with this honour for using infection control practices learnt by her during the 2003 severe acute respiratory syndrome outbreak, in this pandemic situation. Narayanasamy, the Deputy Director of Nursing at Woodlands Health Campus, introduced workflows and standard operating procedures to covert wards at the Yishun Community Hospital to care for the COVID 19 patients.

Besides this, Ms Narayanasamy is also associated with the modernization of nursing in Singapore with her projects such as the implementation of a self-checkout inventory management vending machine to track the usage of items. She was also involved in the introduction of the use of a streamlined wound assessment process to provide accurate wound measurements and image capture. Both these steps have been implemented at Yishun Community Hospital in Singapore.

Ms Narayansamy is now involved in the planning for the Woodlands Health Campus to be opened in 2022. She is mainly interested in grooming the next generation of nurses in the country.

What is the President’s Award?

The President’s Award by the Singapore Government is meant to recognize the nurses who have shown sustained outstanding performance and contributions to patient care delivery, education, research and administration. Since its inception in 2000, 77 nurses have been honoured with this award so far.

Month: Current Affairs - July, 2020