When Yvonne Yap became a nurse 18 years ago, one comment she heard about her job was: “Nursing is just cleaning the backside. It is full of bacteria.” Then, many saw nursing as a lowly job, and care duties as dirty.
But Yap, who is now the deputy director of nursing at Khoo Teck Puat Hospital (KTPH), said these menial caregiving routines are the heart of nursing.
She recalled an elderly stroke patient she cared for in 2011 when she was a young nurse. “He was very unkempt and had a long beard that was very smelly. He was also uncompliant and kept trying to stand up and insisted on going home.”
After fruitlessly persuading him to shower all morning, Yap decided to shower him herself. She cut his beard, and washed and groomed him, all the while complimenting him on how handsome he looked after a little sprucing up. After the hour-long bath, the old man began to open up to the young nurse.
After his discharge, Yap visited him regularly over two years, and the two became friends.
“He lived alone and his house was very dirty. He didn’t want to go to a nursing home because he was very close to his late wife and kept all her items at home. With my community network and his family, I painted and furnished his house, packed his stuff, and hung up photos of his late wife,” she reminisced, adding that her old friend has since
Cleaning and bathing patients, Yap explained, is never about soap and water. It is about a moment of painful vulnerability for many patients.
“I don’t think any one of us would be willing to even bare ourselves physically to a stranger if we did not have to. For the patient to allow that, they’ve already lowered their dignity,” Yap said.
Yvonne Yap is one of the youngest recipients of the President’s Award for Nurses since it started in 2000. (Photo: Khoo Teck Puat Hospital)
Nursing is about restoring dignity to patients when they are unable to care for themselves, or in some cases when they are struck with a life-shattering diagnosis or facing the end of life, she said.
This belief sustained Yap through almost two decades of service. In July, the 38-year-old was one of the winners of this year’s President’s Award for Nurses, the highest honour for the profession.
Yap personally witnessed the quiet heroism of nurses at a very young age.
When she was nine, her father, a supervisor at the Jurong Island reclamation site, drowned while diving to do some work checks. His oxygen tank was empty, and he had hooked himself to the seabed, probably to prevent his body from floating away, Yap said.
“When we arrived at the hospital, he had already died. They had removed his suit and his upper body was not covered. He was only covered from the waist,” she recalled.
“It was a shock to see him like that, not responding to me. My mum was in shock too. But my aunt and my cousin were nurses, and I saw how quickly they intervened to make sure he was covered properly to give him more dignity.
“They continued to support my mum, my sister and me throughout the funeral process. That made the first impression on me about what nurses could do, and the quiet resilience they had in times of crisis.”
Yap with her mother and son after receiving the President’s Award for Nurses 2025. (Photo: Khoo Teck Puat Hospital)
After her father’s death, Yap’s mum, an active volunteer, began taking her along to the community centre to help with simple chores like stacking chairs and sweeping the floor.
Volunteering sparked Yap’s desire to give back, and the care shown by her aunt and cousin during her father’s passing inspired her to pursue nursing. In 2007, she joined Khoo Teck Puat Hospital and has never looked back.
In the first two weeks of her attachment as a first-year polytechnic nursing student, she cared for an uncompliant elderly woman with a hip fracture.
“She was screaming and groaning all the time, probably because of the pain. But none of the nurses could touch her. If you tried to take her temperature, she’d throw the thermometer. If you tried to change her diapers, she’d pinch you. We just couldn’t understand why,” Yap recalled.
One incident finally gave the young nursing student a glimpse into the old woman’s world. A relative who had come to visit flippantly placed her handbag on the patient’s leg on the side of her hip fracture, causing her to scream in pain.
This relative then proceeded to tell the patient off for being grumpy. When Yap pointed out that the handbag had hurt the patient, the relative didn’t apologise. She simply took it off and continued berating the patient.
“I felt so sorry for the patient. No wonder she was always in such a bad mood,” said Yap.
That incident prompted Yap and a fellow student nurse to shower the patient with kind words and care. Even when she pinched them, they would simply smile.
It took a week to melt the old woman’s heart. Soon, they were the only ones in the ward who could feed her medication, and by the end of their two-week attachment, she had become their favourite patient.
Yap learnt early in her career not to judge patients. “There could be reasons why they behave this way,” she says. (Photo: Khoo Teck Puat Hospital)
From then on, empathy became the heart of Yap’s nursing journey.
Several years later, as a young nurse, Yap had another career-shaping experience with a patient with diabetes who had severe ulcers on her foot. Doctors had planned an amputation.
“The patient lived in a kampung area in Malaysia and would struggle to get around after an amputation. So my nurse manager challenged the doctors to give her a chance to see if nursing interventions could prevent the amputation.
“We took charge of her wound management along with a wound specialist nurse, managed her diet strictly and taught her how to avoid putting pressure on her feet. The wound healed well, and she avoided an amputation,” smiled Yap.
This experience inspired Yap to go the extra mile for patients.
After six years of nursing, Yap took on a leadership position as acting nurse manager in 2013 and continued to rise through the ranks. In 2024, she became deputy director of nursing, overseeing around 2,000 nurses and nursing administrators.
As deputy director of nursing at Khoo Teck Puat Hospital, Yap (centre) hopes to ease the unseen burden of nurses. (Photo: Khoo Teck Puat Hospital)
As caregivers, nurses carry a heavy mental load, Yap, who has two children aged seven and four, said.
“A nurse looking after five to 10 patients also has to coordinate which patient showers first, bearing in mind what procedures or assessments need to be done, what things need to be prepared, and if the showering should come before or after these procedures,” she said.
Nurses also do a lot of unseen backend work, she added. In addition to caring for patients and administering medication, they need to check on equipment and processes, coordinate care across different teams in the hospital and healthcare settings, and train younger nurses.
For example, when a doctor orders a patient discharge, nurses coordinate appointments and necessary care after discharge, liaise with the pharmacy for medication, liaise with social workers in some cases, and prepare education materials for the patient, she explained.
When patients move from acute hospitals to community hospitals, nurses also bridge these transitions.
As deputy director of nursing at Khoo Teck Puat Hospital, Yap (left) hopes to ease the unseen burden of nurses. (Photo: Khoo Teck Puat Hospital)
The role is intense and emotionally charged because patients’ conditions can change rapidly, and ethical dilemmas may weigh heavily on nurses.
Sometimes, patients and their family cannot agree whether to keep palliative patients on life support, or family members even request to keep the diagnosis from patients, Yap said.
To help nurses better navigate these situations, Yap set up a nursing ethics committee with senior nurses to provide on-the-ground guidance and engage nurses in regular discussion of controversial cases.
To give nurses more work-life balance, Yap also reduced the number of consecutive night shifts, and shifted the morning start time from 7am to 7.30am so that nurses who are mothers can drop off young children at preschool – which opens at 7am – before heading to work.
By streamlining workflows, Yap hopes to free up nurses to spend time on what matters most: Building relationships and spotting patient needs that might otherwise go unnoticed.
Nurses, she said, are the glue connecting patients to the wider healthcare system and community resources.
“That’s the power of nursing. If we as nurses show sincerity and are willing to listen and understand patients’ side of story, they will open up,” she reflected. That way, nurses can truly reach people who need extra help so that no one slips through the cracks.
CNA Women is a section on CNA Lifestyle that seeks to inform, empower and inspire the modern woman. If you have women-related news, issues and ideas to share with us, email CNAWomen [at] mediacorp.com.sg (CNAWomen[at]mediacorp[dot]com[dot]sg).
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But Yap, who is now the deputy director of nursing at Khoo Teck Puat Hospital (KTPH), said these menial caregiving routines are the heart of nursing.
She recalled an elderly stroke patient she cared for in 2011 when she was a young nurse. “He was very unkempt and had a long beard that was very smelly. He was also uncompliant and kept trying to stand up and insisted on going home.”
After fruitlessly persuading him to shower all morning, Yap decided to shower him herself. She cut his beard, and washed and groomed him, all the while complimenting him on how handsome he looked after a little sprucing up. After the hour-long bath, the old man began to open up to the young nurse.
After his discharge, Yap visited him regularly over two years, and the two became friends.
“He lived alone and his house was very dirty. He didn’t want to go to a nursing home because he was very close to his late wife and kept all her items at home. With my community network and his family, I painted and furnished his house, packed his stuff, and hung up photos of his late wife,” she reminisced, adding that her old friend has since
Cleaning and bathing patients, Yap explained, is never about soap and water. It is about a moment of painful vulnerability for many patients.
“I don’t think any one of us would be willing to even bare ourselves physically to a stranger if we did not have to. For the patient to allow that, they’ve already lowered their dignity,” Yap said.
Yvonne Yap is one of the youngest recipients of the President’s Award for Nurses since it started in 2000. (Photo: Khoo Teck Puat Hospital)
Nursing is about restoring dignity to patients when they are unable to care for themselves, or in some cases when they are struck with a life-shattering diagnosis or facing the end of life, she said.
This belief sustained Yap through almost two decades of service. In July, the 38-year-old was one of the winners of this year’s President’s Award for Nurses, the highest honour for the profession.
THE FIRST SPARKS OF CARE
Yap personally witnessed the quiet heroism of nurses at a very young age.
When she was nine, her father, a supervisor at the Jurong Island reclamation site, drowned while diving to do some work checks. His oxygen tank was empty, and he had hooked himself to the seabed, probably to prevent his body from floating away, Yap said.
“When we arrived at the hospital, he had already died. They had removed his suit and his upper body was not covered. He was only covered from the waist,” she recalled.
“It was a shock to see him like that, not responding to me. My mum was in shock too. But my aunt and my cousin were nurses, and I saw how quickly they intervened to make sure he was covered properly to give him more dignity.
“They continued to support my mum, my sister and me throughout the funeral process. That made the first impression on me about what nurses could do, and the quiet resilience they had in times of crisis.”
Yap with her mother and son after receiving the President’s Award for Nurses 2025. (Photo: Khoo Teck Puat Hospital)
After her father’s death, Yap’s mum, an active volunteer, began taking her along to the community centre to help with simple chores like stacking chairs and sweeping the floor.
Volunteering sparked Yap’s desire to give back, and the care shown by her aunt and cousin during her father’s passing inspired her to pursue nursing. In 2007, she joined Khoo Teck Puat Hospital and has never looked back.
NURSING FROM THE HEART
In the first two weeks of her attachment as a first-year polytechnic nursing student, she cared for an uncompliant elderly woman with a hip fracture.
“She was screaming and groaning all the time, probably because of the pain. But none of the nurses could touch her. If you tried to take her temperature, she’d throw the thermometer. If you tried to change her diapers, she’d pinch you. We just couldn’t understand why,” Yap recalled.
One incident finally gave the young nursing student a glimpse into the old woman’s world. A relative who had come to visit flippantly placed her handbag on the patient’s leg on the side of her hip fracture, causing her to scream in pain.
This relative then proceeded to tell the patient off for being grumpy. When Yap pointed out that the handbag had hurt the patient, the relative didn’t apologise. She simply took it off and continued berating the patient.
“I felt so sorry for the patient. No wonder she was always in such a bad mood,” said Yap.
That incident prompted Yap and a fellow student nurse to shower the patient with kind words and care. Even when she pinched them, they would simply smile.
It took a week to melt the old woman’s heart. Soon, they were the only ones in the ward who could feed her medication, and by the end of their two-week attachment, she had become their favourite patient.
Yap learnt early in her career not to judge patients. “There could be reasons why they behave this way,” she says. (Photo: Khoo Teck Puat Hospital)
From then on, empathy became the heart of Yap’s nursing journey.
Several years later, as a young nurse, Yap had another career-shaping experience with a patient with diabetes who had severe ulcers on her foot. Doctors had planned an amputation.
“The patient lived in a kampung area in Malaysia and would struggle to get around after an amputation. So my nurse manager challenged the doctors to give her a chance to see if nursing interventions could prevent the amputation.
“We took charge of her wound management along with a wound specialist nurse, managed her diet strictly and taught her how to avoid putting pressure on her feet. The wound healed well, and she avoided an amputation,” smiled Yap.
This experience inspired Yap to go the extra mile for patients.
UPLIFTING THE NURSING COMMUNITY
After six years of nursing, Yap took on a leadership position as acting nurse manager in 2013 and continued to rise through the ranks. In 2024, she became deputy director of nursing, overseeing around 2,000 nurses and nursing administrators.
As deputy director of nursing at Khoo Teck Puat Hospital, Yap (centre) hopes to ease the unseen burden of nurses. (Photo: Khoo Teck Puat Hospital)
As caregivers, nurses carry a heavy mental load, Yap, who has two children aged seven and four, said.
“A nurse looking after five to 10 patients also has to coordinate which patient showers first, bearing in mind what procedures or assessments need to be done, what things need to be prepared, and if the showering should come before or after these procedures,” she said.
Nurses also do a lot of unseen backend work, she added. In addition to caring for patients and administering medication, they need to check on equipment and processes, coordinate care across different teams in the hospital and healthcare settings, and train younger nurses.
For example, when a doctor orders a patient discharge, nurses coordinate appointments and necessary care after discharge, liaise with the pharmacy for medication, liaise with social workers in some cases, and prepare education materials for the patient, she explained.
When patients move from acute hospitals to community hospitals, nurses also bridge these transitions.
As deputy director of nursing at Khoo Teck Puat Hospital, Yap (left) hopes to ease the unseen burden of nurses. (Photo: Khoo Teck Puat Hospital)
The role is intense and emotionally charged because patients’ conditions can change rapidly, and ethical dilemmas may weigh heavily on nurses.
Sometimes, patients and their family cannot agree whether to keep palliative patients on life support, or family members even request to keep the diagnosis from patients, Yap said.
To help nurses better navigate these situations, Yap set up a nursing ethics committee with senior nurses to provide on-the-ground guidance and engage nurses in regular discussion of controversial cases.
To give nurses more work-life balance, Yap also reduced the number of consecutive night shifts, and shifted the morning start time from 7am to 7.30am so that nurses who are mothers can drop off young children at preschool – which opens at 7am – before heading to work.
By streamlining workflows, Yap hopes to free up nurses to spend time on what matters most: Building relationships and spotting patient needs that might otherwise go unnoticed.
Nurses, she said, are the glue connecting patients to the wider healthcare system and community resources.
“That’s the power of nursing. If we as nurses show sincerity and are willing to listen and understand patients’ side of story, they will open up,” she reflected. That way, nurses can truly reach people who need extra help so that no one slips through the cracks.
CNA Women is a section on CNA Lifestyle that seeks to inform, empower and inspire the modern woman. If you have women-related news, issues and ideas to share with us, email CNAWomen [at] mediacorp.com.sg (CNAWomen[at]mediacorp[dot]com[dot]sg).
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