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NCID > News & Events > News > Medical social worker finds meaning in supporting COVID-19 patients

Medical social worker finds meaning in supporting COVID-19 patients

Medical social worker finds meaning in supporting COVID-19 patients

When the pandemic struck last year, Dr Ho Lai Peng encountered an anxious COVID-19 patient hospitalised at the National Centre for Infectious Diseases (NCID) who was separated from her young children.

Dr Ho Lai Peng is a principal medical social worker at the National Centre for Infectious Diseases. ST PHOTO: DESMOND WEE

The patient was worried about her children's well-being, as they were in another hospital with a relative who had been admitted for another infection.

Says Dr Ho, a principal medical social worker at NCID: "Her children were anxious as well, as they were away from their mother.

"It was important to work with the other hospital during this period to coordinate care until both patients were safely discharged.

"It was also important to provide a listening ear to the mother and talk to her, as this would help reduce anxiety."

For the past 30 years, Dr Ho has been a medical social worker providing counselling and emotional support to patients - and their families - with difficulties adjusting to medical conditions or who are in the hospital for emotional issues.

She now leads a team of 20 medical social workers and staff at NCID.

Dr Ho and her team help facilitate video calls between COVID-19 patients and their families, communicate a grave prognosis to the families if the patient's condition worsens and provide bereavement support should the patient die.

She says: "The patients may be well one moment and become gravely ill the next. As the deterioration may be sudden for some, it's difficult for the families to grapple with that. It's hard when they can say their goodbyes only through the glass of the patient's room or over the phone or via video call."

Having to treat COVID-19 patients is not just physically taxing, but also emotionally exhausting.

But Dr Ho says: "I find my job meaningful as I support patients as they undergo change, and am part of the same journey with them. That in itself is a reward."

She notes that the field of social work is dominated by women as they are unafraid to face difficult emotions and life issues.

But, more broadly, she hopes to see equal treatment and opportunities for women, especially in positions of authority, and for a more open discussion on gender equality in Singapore.

"It is important to address women's issues because gender inequality is something that still exists to some degree in society," she says.

"Gender equality should be a given and not something which women have to fight for."

 

Read the full article here.

Source: The Straits Times © Singapore Press Holdings Limited. Permission required for reproduction.


















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