Giving At NHCS: What Matters To You

28 Nov 2019 | Stories from the Heart (NHCS)

By Sarah Chen

Mr Ng (right) can now enjoy time with his first grandchild

“I’m blessed to be able to live longer to witness the arrival of my first grandchild.”
~ Mr Ng Lian Thong (right)

If you search the meaning of philanthropy online, most sites define it as the “love of humanity” - it can be an action, event or idea that involves giving in many ways to better improve the quality of life. Some of the most common ways we know are donating money, raising money to donate to a cause and volunteering.

In July 2019, we conducted a survey to better understand your views on philanthropy at NHCS and to help us better plan our giving initiatives.

The survey results are in and we are pleased to share them with you below:

From the results, we learnt that our staff wanted to know how the funds are used and who we have helped. We are also delighted to know that over 60% of the respondents expressed their interest in participating in fundraising activities.

NHCS recognises that it is definitely essential for both public and staff donors to know who and how their donations have helped in achieving the mission of our Heart To Heart Fund – whether the funds have helped to financially support our needy patients, fund new treatment modalities for those in need, or advance our medical research and education to improve health outcomes.

Moving forward, there are plans to publish such information on our various platforms such as Infopedia, staff newsletter and Workplace, as well as our corporate website – Giving page. We will also be planning activities to raise awareness and funds among our staff and invite the participation from our staff.

In this issue, we start by sharing an overview of how the Fund has helped our patients.

About 53 per cent of our funds disbursement have gone towards supporting our efforts in research and education (including Cardiovascular Sciences Academic Clinical Programme) and 28 per cent to patient care. Last year, there were several updates to government healthcare subsidy and assistance schemes to allow patients to receive more support and subsidies. However, the amount of fund disbursed in FY18 was not any lesser than previous years, as there were some patients who required further help in other areas which might not be adequately covered under the schemes.

The funding for each patient in FY18 has increased by slightly over 8 per cent even though the number of patients has dipped by 7 per cent. The funds were mainly to help patients with their medical bills, transport and equipment costs, as well as subsidising new treatment modalities such as Transcatheter Aortic Valve Implantation (TAVI) and MitraClip therapy.

Over the last three years, Heart To Heart Fund has helped more than 600 patients and Mr Ng Lian Thong is one of them.

Aside from battling multiple chronic conditions, Mr Ng Lian Thong was diagnosed with a damaged heart valve and was given a bleak prognosis of having only a 50 per cent chance to live beyond one year. This has left him with no treatment option other than a new treatment modality, TAVI.

“We know we shouldn’t delay his treatment but we couldn’t afford the procedure,” shared Mr Ng’s elder son. The Heart To Heart Fund helped subsidise Mr Ng’s treatment cost so that he could proceed with the procedure with a peace of mind.

To read more of our patient beneficiaries’ stories, head over here.

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