Ms Loke (centre), signing up for staff giving at the Family Medicine ACP stall during SingHealth Giving Day 2018
Working in SingHealth gives both clinical and non-clinical staff a window into the challenges patients face and the difference research and medical education can make. Ms Loke Chui Yee, Chief Operating Officer, SingHealth Polyclinics, shares why she initially signed up for staff giving and why she now champions fundraising for Family Medicine.
I first signed up for staff giving in 2016 when I was working in KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital. Seeing children battling life-threatening diseases and coping with chronic disabling illnesses, made me want to do my part to help in whatever little way I could. When I transferred to SingHealth Polyclinics in 2018, I decided to continue this monthly commitment of pledging a small gift to the SingHealth Duke-NUS Family Medicine Academic Clinical Programme (FM ACP).
Though Family Medicine may not seem to be a complex specialty, I believe the realities of our ageing population and the increased prevalence of chronic diseases contribute towards the urgency to focus on research and education, even as we treat patients today.
SingHealth Polyclinics sees many elderly patients and many of them grapple with conditions such as hypertension and diabetes, which can result in grave complications and affect their quality of life if they are poorly controlled. We are here to intervene and help many of these patients, particularly those in the early stages of disease, manage their conditions.
I believe that clinical care, research and education are three important drivers to provide quality care for our patients. We need to go further, beyond just treating the patients who come to us, by training future generations of clinicians, empowering researchers to find answers through education and research projects. Only then can we develop new clinical protocols, drugs, diagnostics and devices to bring about new care models that really benefit our patients.
I’m passionate about the need to support the FM ACP and have shared about the importance of giving with my team. I hope that with the ease of making monthly donations through the payroll system, more staff will come forward to pledge their support for this very meaningful cause.
