ANNEX – Recipients of President’s Award for Nurses 2015
Stephanie Teo Swee Hong (张瑞芳)
Deputy Director, Nursing
SingHealth Polyclinics
Age: 52
A diligent, proactive and forward-looking Nurse Leader, Stephanie constantly seeks to improve work
processes and nursing care delivery in SingHealth Polyclinics (SHP).
As the key nursing member in SHP Quality Improvement Committee and Enterprise Risk
Management Committee, Stephanie takes an active role in improving quality of care and patient
safety such as conducting Incident Reporting road shows to create awareness in incident reporting
and near-misses, and providing analysis and recommendations to prevent and mitigate risks.
To better manage patients with highly complex chronic conditions, Stephanie participated in the
development of the case management and patient assessment framework to coordinate care across
cluster institutions – now piloting in a few polyclinics.
Research is Stephanie’s other passion. Not only does she play an instrumental role in building the
research capabilities of the nurses, she also inspires others in following this passion. This contributed
to the achievements of five published nursing research papers and six project presentations in local
and international conferences.
Stephanie is an inspirational role model who is committed in mentoring and educating the
younger generation of nurses. She helps in creating a supportive environment that fosters
the development of leadership skills among newer nursing leaders.
ANNEX – Recipients of President’s Award for Nurses 2015
Pua Lay Hoon (潘丽云)
Deputy Director, Nursing (Education and Practice)
Tan Tock Seng Hospital
Age: 45
Lay Hoon is a proven Educator, a passionate and most effective teacher who has contributed
immensely to the training of nurses. She empowers and motivates her staff at every rank, and is a
champion for all her students, advocating for their rights to realize their fullest potential. Nursing
Students, to her, is her duty to nurture for the future nursing profession.
A hallmark example is her advocacy for upgrading the Enrolled Nurses. In 2009, she actively
reviewed and campaigned for the reinstatement of the bridging programme so that Enrolled Nurses
have the chance to study to become Staff Nurses. Finally in 2010, with the support of the then Chief
Nursing Officer, the bridging programme was successfully reinstated.
In 2013, she was pivotal in aiding TTSH to be conferred the Pathway to Excellence Accreditation by
the American Nurses Credentialing Centre (ANCC). This made TTSH the first international hospital to
achieve this accreditation. In 2014, she and her team achieved the ANCC accreditation for TTSH to
be a Continuing Education provider.
At National level, Lay Hoon is a Member of both the Singapore Nursing Board and the National
Nursing Taskforce’s Education committee. From 2009-2013, she was also a Committee Member for
Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine. Internationally, she has been an External Examiner with the
Nursing Faculty of Tengku Abdul Rahman University, Malaysia since 2009.
More recently, she was appointed in 2014 to be the Nurse Lead for Clinical Service Planning for the
Woodlands Integrated Healthcare Campus (WIHC) where she was tasked to set up the Nursing
Service and lead the in-patient clinical service planning. In this new role, she hopes to build a strong
nursing team that will help make WIHC the campus of choice for patients and healthcare providers.
ANNEX – Recipients of President’s Award for Nurses 2015
Velusamy Poomkothammal
Assistant Director, Nursing
Khoo Teck Puat Hospital
Age: 57
Attending to broken and bleeding bodies in the middle of the road was a regular duty for Ms
Velusamy Poomkothammal during her many years as a nurse with the SCDF Emergency Ambulance
Service. Trained in Emergency Nursing and Midwifery, she joined the service in 1980 after practising
as a novice nurse with the Singapore General Hospital.
With limited equipment and no doctors for support, Sister Velu (as she is fondly known), had to rely
on her clinical expertise, leadership skills and teamwork to save lives and get victims to hospital
quickly. A patient advocate, she trained and mentored junior colleagues and taught first aid skills to
the public so that treatment could start before the ambulance arrived, improving patient outcomes
as a result. She received multiple commendations for her courage, dedication and compassion
during her stint with the service.
When Sister Velu joined Alexandra Hospital in 1999, she championed quality improvement initiatives
such as the Falls Prevention Programme and conducted resuscitative care training whilst managing a
ward. Sister Velu also nurtured future nurse leaders so that they could run wards when the
organisation moved to Khoo Teck Puat Hospital (KTPH).
Today, Sister Velu continues to strive for better patient care, training and mentoring nurses both at
KTPH and beyond. She was instrumental in developing the national standards and training
curriculum for private ambulance drivers and transporters and is a facilitator for nursing leadership
programmes at the Healthcare Leadership College at the Ministry of Health Holdings.
Sister Velu’s dream is to groom the next generation of nurses to be insightful and resilient so as to
make a positive impact on the nursing profession.
ANNEX – Recipients of President’s Award for Nurses 2015
Teo Lee Wah (张丽华)
Senior Nurse Clinician & Advanced Practice Nurse
National Heart Centre Singapore
Age: 50
In 2006, Lee Wah, together with a team of heart failure cardiologists and allied health professionals,
developed the Heart Failure Service at the National Heart Centre Singapore. It encompasses
initiatives such as the heart failure coordinated clinical care pathway, ancillary clinic, nurse-led clinic,
a support group and education for heart failure patients. She now has four other nurses working
with her in the service.
Lee Wah has been actively conducting and promoting research, and she serves on several
committees including the Nursing Research and Peer Review Council which she chairs at the
National Heart Centre Singapore. Her research has shown that nurse-led heart failure services have
helped to halve readmission rates, and a collaborative review of medications by nurses and
pharmacists has also helped to improve patient outcomes.
Most recently, she was the Principal Investigator for the project “The lived experience of patients in
Singapore after left ventricular assist device implantations”, and the Co-Investigator for
“Ultrafiltration in patients with decompensated heart failure and diuretic resistance, an Asian Centre
experience”. The findings of these two projects provide further evidence to help care for and
support heart failure patients.
ANNEX – Recipients of President’s Award for Nurses 2015
Dr Lim Su-Fee (林淑慧)
Senior Nurse Clinician & Advanced Practice Nurse
Singapore General Hospital
Age: 44
Su-Fee is a pioneer Advanced Practice Nurse (APN) in Rehabilitation Medicine and was responsible
for a number of “firsts” in SGH: developing the rehabilitation nursing service, introducing the
induction programme in rehabilitation nursing, and initiating inpatient intermittent catheterisation,
bladder scan service and the discharge folder for patients.
She has also undertaken many research studies on patients with disabilities and these research
findings have been disseminated through local and international conferences and journals. Her PhD
thesis on constipation in patients with stroke was translated into clinical practice, as were the results
of her research on the effectiveness of Clinical Teaching Rounds and Caregivers Training Programme.
Su-Fee makes it a point to address caregivers’ needs in the rehabilitation plan. She also believes in
equipping patients’ care givers for self-care at home. In her involvement in the development of
Sengkang Hospital, she made recommendations on accommodating patients with disabilities and
including a designated caregiver training centre to meet the needs and improve the continuity of
patient care.
She is an adjunct lecturer at the Alice Lee Centre for Nursing Studies, National University of
Singapore. She is also involved in many national APN development committees – e.g. Master of
Nursing Curriculum Review Committee, APN Examination Committee, APN Training Committee, and
Singapore Nursing Board’s Clinical Practice Audit Team.
ANNEX – Recipients of President’s Award for Nurses 2015
Ms Zeenat Binte Mohd Salim
Nurse Manager
Health Promotion Board
Age : 61
Zeenat is a Nurse Manager with the School Health Service, and oversees the provision of quality
health screening and immunisation services to over 21,000 students in 19 primary schools, including
two special education schools.
With a strong desire to build a healthy foundation among children, Zeenat helps to drive and
contribute to the planning of the screening and immunisation programme in schools.
Her patience and caring demeanour have provided reassurance for students when they go through
screening tests and immunisation. Parents are also appreciative of her efforts to help them better
understand why immunisation and health screening in schools are essential for preventing childhood
infectious diseases and detection of health conditions common among children respectively.
Zeenat also acts as a bridge between school principals and HPB divisions such as the School Health
Outreach Division to address health related concerns in schools and implement programmes such as
Healthy Meals in School Programme.
Zeenat is actively involved in the development of the clinic and field clinical computer systems for
capturing clinical assessment and findings of students. She regularly provides suggestions to
enhance the existing systems.
With her wealth of knowledge and experience in nursing, Zeenat regularly trains and grooms nurses
under her charge. She believes in the potential of her nurses and creates opportunities to help them
to grow in their career.
ANNEX – Recipients of President’s Award for Nurses 2015
Jocelyn Ng Ling Hui (黄灵慧)
Nurse Educator
Ang Mo Kio - Thye Hua Kwan Hospital
Age: 35
Jocelyn started as an Enrolled Nurse and after two years, undertook her Diploma in Nursing, and
subsequently, her nursing degree. Jocelyn chose the education track and she is now a Nurse
Educator in charge of training. Jocelyn strongly believes that well educated nurses will provide better
and more effective care for their patients and family members and will be pursuing a Master in
Education.
Jocelyn enjoys sharing her clinical experiences and developing of training programmes for nurses
and students. She bases her teaching on using the Nursing philosophy and six dimensions of Caring:
valuing, connecting to, empowering, doing with, finding meaning, and preserving own integrity.
She developed a structured programme for student attachments to ensure that the students would
have exposure to the various departments in the hospital, enabling them to learn about patientcentric care beyond the limits of nursing and to enhance the quality of learning. She also revamped
the hospital’s orientation and training programmes, resulting in the new nurses developing their
competencies in a shorter span of time.
She assures that the content of the training is relevant and ensures that the new nurses and
students who pass through her hands are well prepared to meet the constantly changing health care
environment.
She has been invited back to ITE on many occasions to inspire the nursing students. Her story has
also been televised as a documentary on local television.
She was appointed as a trainer by AIC to conduct the End of Life Nursing Education consortium
programme at AMK-THK.