“As a nurse manager, I oversee the operational and clinical needs of both the National University Hospital (NUH)'s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) and neonatal high dependency (NHD) wards, alongside four other Sisters,” shared Ms Nur Aliza Binte Kamsan, fondly known as Sister Aliza to her colleagues.

In addition to handling operations and staff welfare, the nurse of almost 17 years also leads a team on palliative and bereavement care. She also helms a parents’ support group for families with critically ill babies, guiding them through their NICU journey and offering comfort should they face the loss of their infant.

In the mornings, she starts her shift at 7am, rising at 4.30am every day to cook lunch for her family and to pack food for her kids’ recess.

“My bosses allow me to start work an hour earlier instead of 8am,” she revealed. “This gives me more time in the evenings to attend to my children and their homework.”

Things are a little tougher when she does the afternoon shift, but on those days, Sister Aliza has the help of her eldest child and husband when it comes to guiding the younger ones with their schoolwork.

“Before joining NICU, I had never encountered babies this tiny, as well as sick newborns. My passion grew as I nursed them back to health and discharged them months later. The joy of seeing their parents sharing their babies’ milestones as they grow up after ‘graduating’ from NICU gives me immense satisfaction.”

Sister Aliza’s passion for nursing began well before she officially joined NUH NICU as a fresh nursing graduate in July 2007.

“I wanted to help and give back to others,” she recalled. “This calling grew even stronger when I was involved as a caregiver to both of my late grandfathers in their old age.

Sister Aliza recalled a little angel who touched their hearts with its fighting spirit. “I had a critically ill baby who persevered for more than six months. Sadly, the baby passed on despite our best efforts, and every one of us bawled our eyes out during the debrief.

“This was a reminder that while we may be nurses — not bonded by blood to the babies we care for — but we are all still humans with feelings, and will still be affected if anything untoward happens to the infants we treat as our own.”

For babies who are with them for longer periods, they’ll achieve their milestones during their stay. This means that nurses also serve as their first ‘teachers’ by providing stimulation to their brains for development, and doing exercises guided by physiotherapists and occupational therapists to help them with their growth.

Holding her own

It was during an attachment at KK Women's and Children's Hospital (KKH) and Asian Women’s Welfare Association (AWWA) — a social service agency that also provides special education to children who have multiple disabilities and autism — where she first encountered children with special needs.

“It opened my eyes to another group of children that I had never met before,” she revealed. “The experience instilled in me a higher level of patience, and taught me the importance of never treating them any differently from the other children, and to get them accepted by the community.”

She also learnt a lot of strategies from the experienced teachers, teacher aides and therapists at AWWA — lessons that would later play a key part in her personal life. “Never would I have imagined that I would send one of my children there in the future,” she said.

She recalled an incident three years ago, when her then-six-year-old special needs son suddenly went missing. “Knowing that he’s non-verbal, we were worried out of our wits,” she recalled. “Luckily, someone spotted him in his AWWA uniform and called the school, which then contacted us. Our boy managed to write his name down for them,” she said.

“I was in denial,” she admitted when she first learnt about her son’s autism diagnosis. The journey has not been easy, but Sister Aliza has the backing of her colleagues, teammates and even her bosses who occasionally check on how she is coping with her children, and if there is anything that they can do to help.

Without hesitation, her colleagues offer a listening ear, whether it is her woes, struggles or grievances, and they celebrate the milestones her boy achieved. They also support her when she needs to take time off for appointments with NUH’s child development unit, attend to frequent parent-teacher meetings at school, and other matters.

Even her interactions with the parents whose babies are in NICU have taught her resilience. “Their never give-up attitude and going all out for their children mindset rubbed off on me and made me a tougher mum,” she shared.

In addition, through relying on NUH’s vast network, Sister Aliza was able to have discussions with doctors and therapists to help create materials to aid her boy with advancing in his speech.

“This year, with him turning nine, colleagues who have seen him since young acknowledge our effort as a family and praise that his development is on the path that we want. From a single-word conversation, he is now a chatty and bubbly boy who can express himself, and can tell us stories of what happened at school,” declares the proud mum.

It’s not been easy, but the saying “it takes a village to raise a child” rings true, especially in Sister Aliza’s case.

In addition to her workmates, there’s also the reassurance of having family members around so that she can fully focus on her job.

“My mum ‘flies in’ from her place in Jurong to my home in Sengkang whenever any of the children are sick or when we need the extra hands,” she said, adding that her husband works flexible hours to ferry the children to and from school, and be there when the school calls up when any of the children falls sick.

There are only so many hours in a day, and although there are times Sister Aliza feels that she does not have enough time to give her attention to each of her children, they are mature enough to see that their mum still does her best to be there for them.

“Like my eldest child says, ‘we do not need to go out and can spend time at home as a family because mum is busy as a nurse; mum is a chef who cooks for us therefore we have our own personal restaurant; mum is a teacher who guides us through school; mum provides us with a ton of books so we do not need to go to the library’,” Sister Aliza shared.

These comments from her children assure her that being a nurse is a calling. Despite all that life has thrown at her, Sister Aliza wouldn’t have it any other way. “Every single good deed I’ve done in caring for my vulnerable patients, is acknowledged by God, if not by the baby’s parents. In return, I have gifts of my own, my precious children and an understanding husband,” she said, adding that her work has even inspired her 10-year-old daughter to want to be a neonatal nurse in the future.