Tan Cheng Hong
Assistant Director of Nursing, Surgical and Specialised Services, Alexandra Hospital (AH)
A dedicated leader and mentor, Cheng Hong inspires nurses to advance in their profession and continually improve to enhance healthcare quality and safety. She played a pivotal role in the setup of the Community Care Facility@Big Box and COVID-19 Treatment Facility@F1 Pit Building in our fight against the pandemic. Her resilience, leadership, and expertise has contributed tremendously in the transformation of our public healthcare eco-system.
Jason Kwan Chi Keong
Head & Senior Principal Optometrist, Optometry, Ng Teng Fong General Hospital (NTFGH)
Jason embodies the spirit of continuous learning and has gone out of his comfort zone to progress in various roles such as clinician, leader and data analyst. He is lauded for his inspiring mentorship as an adjunct lecturer, clinical supervisor to those in the optometry industry, and as a mentor in the Allied Health Mentorship Programme. A strong advocate for continuous learning and sharing, Jason has contributed significantly in the transformation of our public healthcare eco-system.
Dr Ernest Suresh
Head, Department of Medicine, Ng Teng Fong General Hospital (NTFGH)
Head, Division of General Medicine, NTFGH
Senior Consultant, Division of Rheumatology, Department of Medicine, NTFGH
Dr Suresh took over as the Head of the Department (HOD) of Medicine in January 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic began. The department received the second highest number of COVID-19 patients in the country. Faced with an unprecedented crisis, he led from the frontline and ensured that everyone was regularly updated and supported, and the morale and enthusiasm were maintained. He managed the internal deployment of manpower in response to rapidly changing workflows and rise in the number of COVID cases, and also supported the other departments like Emergency Department (ED) and Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and the operations at Big Box CCF and dormitories as one coordinated team.
Improvements in acute and general medicine workflows championed by Dr Suresh have resulted in safer care for patients, reduced burnout among doctors and improved performance in areas such as re-admissions, case mix index and undergraduate teaching scores. He was instrumental in setting up ED-liaison teams and HOT clinics which enabled better collaboration with ED.
Dr Suresh has received multiple awards for service quality and education and wrote an acute medicine handbook for use by the on-call doctors at night. A much-respected leader, Dr Suresh is highly regarded by his staff for his clinical astuteness and for 'being on the ground and approachable'.
Key ED Leaders in Pandemic (KELP)
National University Hospital (NUH)
When COVID-19 struck, NUH Emergency Department (ED) took on the additional role of being the first line of defence for the hospital. In response to the pandemic, the department formed the Key ED Leaders in Pandemic (KELP) team comprising clinicians, nurses and hospital operations staff. The KELP team rapidly ramped up isolation capacity (from 17 to 213) and redesigned workflows. While the team had no prior experience handling a prolonged pandemic, they demonstrated professionalism, agility and tenacity in the face of extreme challenges. Throughout the pandemic, they worked tirelessly to efficiently triage and manage both COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 patients while ensuring the safety of patients and staff. Thinking on their feet and acting with their heart, the KELP team played a crucial role in reducing the risk of NUH being overwhelmed by the surge in patients.
Key ED Leaders -
Dr Peng Li Lee, Dr Ian Mathews, Dr Brandon Koh, Ms Liang Sufang, Ms Sharmaine Poh, Dr Kanwar Sudhir Lather, Dr Alexander Ng, Ms Wong Shuting, Ms Uma Chandra, Dr Yau Ying Wei, Ms Ada Chan, Ms Janet Seak, Ms Er Ning
COVID-19 External Ops
Alexandra Hospital (AH)
The COVID-19 External Ops team at AH showed true courage and tenacity as a multi-disciplinary team being one of the first hospitals to go into the dorms to care for our migrant workers. The team also mounted mobile swab teams for the dormitories and supported NUHS's set up of the Community Care Facility (CCF) at Big Box. In the CCF, the care teams worked with partners including HealthServce and Kitesong to develop educational posters, talks and videos, in multiple native languages to help raise the morale of migrant workers.
Ilandari Deva Nishantha, Healthcare Assistant from JurongHealth Campus is a recipient of the Public Sector Transformation Awards' Exemplary Service Excellence Award. The award recognises outstanding officers who have consistently demonstrated high standards of service excellence.
Nishantha always pays close attention to his patients' needs, and even has the unique ability to connect with patients who are unresponsive or uncommunicative. Displaying outstanding patience, he would never give up on them and strives in holding a conversation, even if it is only one-way. Over time, patients were touched by his sincerity and warmed up to him. Often going above and beyond the call of duty, Nishantha offers help to patients who face issues settling back at home. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he also actively shared about good hand hygiene and the importance of proper mask wearing at his church.
