01 Jul 2010
Mr Tony Chan feels a special bond with old folks – and helping them, even in small, insignificant ways, makes his day.
“It doesn’t matter if I spend one hour or one minute with them. If I’ve helped [SGH patients and visitors] find their way to the right place, and they don’t feel so lost or their physical condition doesn’t feel worse as a result, I feel I’ve done something worthwhile,” said Mr Chan, a veteran volunteer who has been helping patients and visitors find their way around.
Mr Chan, 54, and semi-retired, has been helping people since primary school.
It was curiosity about the former Society for Aid to the Paralysed (now Society for the Physically Disabled), across the road from his primary school, that started Mr Chan on a life of voluntary work.
At Singapore General Hospital (SGH), he has been a volunteer with The Guider’s Programme since last September. Mr Chan is stationed at the information counter at the Specialist Outpatient Clinics at Block 3 every Wednesday, from 9am to 1pm.
There, Mr Chan – a tall man with salt and pepper hair and the muscular frame of a person 20 years his junior – waits to help elderly patients alighting from hospital shuttle buses or arriving in cars by guiding them to their appointment venues through the complex layout of hospital buildings.
He also gets wheelchairs for those who need one, often wheeling them to their destinations if their companions are also elderly.
The work of Mr Chan and other volunteers complements that of the green uniformed concierge staff.
Since this programme started, patients no longer have to wait up to 15 minutes for concierge staff – who are swamped by many requests – to escort them to their appointments. Some 30 volunteers, identified by their “Friends of SGH” badges, help out from Mondays to Fridays, working shifts from 9am to 1pm, and 1pm to 5pm.
Mr Chan hopes more people will step forward to volunteer their time. Such work can be physically tiring, and volunteers sometimes bear the brunt of patients’ frustration. “These people are ill, possibly in pain, so they may be in a bad mood. But they need help and I hope more people will volunteer,” he said.
He recalls a golden moment. “There was an old man who was shaking his head and saying in Hokkien that things weren’t going to go well for him. I put my hand on his shoulder and told him that the doctors would do their best and that he shouldn’t worry.”
The man turned to him, stopped frowning, smiled and said: “Thank you.”
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