27 Mar 2010
SHE would climb the iron gate to get back in after curfew hours if she had been out on a date with her boyfriend. Or she would sneak in with the night-duty nurses returning to Vickers' House for supper, to avoid being caught.
Yesterday, Ms Rosie Kwan returned to the scene of her shenanigans, to bid farewell to her home for three years in the 1960s.
The 63-year-old senior nurse manager at Singapore General Hospital recalled: 'I had to throw my high heels over the gate first, before climbing in with my boyfriend's help.'
Reliving their own memories were 500 other former and current nurses getting together for the final time at Vickers' House, the hostel built for trainee nurses in 1953. It will be making way for the new National Heart Centre Singapore.
Among them was retiree Dora Poong, 78, from one of the first batches, who was sad to say goodbye, but accepted that the new heart centre would serve Singapore well.
Another, former director of nursing at Changi General Hospital Janet Chan Poh Goon said the stay at Vickers' House marked the start of her 42 years of nursing career before she retired in 2002.
To many nursing students, living in the premises from the 1950s to the 1990s was a rite of passage during their training at the School of Nursing.
Vickers' House, officially opened on July 29, 1953, by Mrs Tan Chin Tuan, wife of the then deputy president of the Singapore Legislative Council, was set up to house trainees during the intensive recruitment of nurses in the 1950s and 1960s.
The five-storey, pink and white building ceased to operate as a hostel in 1995.
At the reunion yesterday, Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan presented louvre glass window panes retrieved from the building to three donors who gave a total of $5,000 to the SingHealth Nurses Volunteer Outreach Programme.
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