SINGAPORE: Going to the National Heart Centre to seek treatment for a heart condition can be intimidating, so senior nurse manager Tina Teo always takes the time to speak with patients and allay their fears and anxieties.

Ms Teo’s dedication to her patients did not go unnoticed. For her efforts, the 52-year-old received a “Superstar” nursing award, the highest accolade under the Singapore Health Quality Service Awards for healthcare professionals.

The awards, which honour those who have delivered the best care and made an impact on their patients’ lives, was presented by Minister for Health Gan Kim Yong at Mediacorp’s MES Theatre on Tuesday (Jan 30).

“When you lie on the (doctor’s) procedure table, everyone will feel some sense of worry. So we explain to the patient what we will be doing, what they can expect. This makes them feel calmer during the process,” said Ms Teo, who has been in the field for 35 years.

This may seem like standard practice but consider that she does this on top of managing a team of more than 40 nurses and assistants while assisting doctors on a daily basis.

Ms Teo knew from the age of 11 that she wanted to be a nurse. It was at that time that her father had kidney failure. 

“He needed to go to the hospital every other day to do dialysis,” said Ms Teo. She and her six siblings took turns to accompany their father on these sessions and she saw how he struggled to prepare himself for the procedure.

“I felt quite pained when I saw that he had to learn all the (dialysis) techniques, so I thought ‘I should learn so I can do it for him’.”

SUPERSTAR VOLUNTEER MANAGER

Another award recipient in the “Superstar” category was Mr Mohamad Sharil Abdul Rahim, a volunteer management executive at the Ang Mo Kio-Thye Hua Kwan Hospital. 

Together with his 100-strong team of volunteers, Mr Mohamad Sharil plans the week’s activities and therapy-based programmes for the hospital’s patients, such as seated tai chi sessions or karaoke sing-alongs.

“I believe that happy and active patients recover faster,” he said.

Managing volunteers can sometimes be challenging, especially with differing schedules and commitment levels. “(But) I gain my strength from my volunteers and my patients. My patients, especially, they keep me grounded,” said the jovial 33-year-old.

“Sometimes they tease me for my weight … but you know they are joking so you just tahan (“endure” in Malay)!” chuckled Mr Mohamad Sharil.

As a cat lover who owns five cats, Mr Mohamad Sharil also started a volunteer group, Cat-Assisted Therapy Singapore, to run monthly animal-assisted therapy sessions at the hospital.

It did so well that he expanded the therapy programme to three other nursing homes and a student care centre.

The “Superstar” awards were eight of the 3,582 given out to both individuals and institutions in healthcare at the ceremony, organised by the SingHealth Duke-NUS Academic Medical Centre.

Into its eighth year, the awards saw 30 healthcare institutions participating this year, the highest in its award history.

Minister for Health Gan Kim Yong presented the awards and thanked the professionals for their dedication, noting that many had gone “beyond the call of duty”. 

“You make all the difference to the patients,” said the Health Minister to an audience of more than 1,400 healthcare professionals.

SINGAPORE: When Mr Leo Liao first enrolled his 11-year-old daughter, Lea, in the Lycee Francais de Singapour (LFS) last year, he was concerned that Lea, who did not speak French, would be isolated from her peers or struggle to catch up in class.

“I think my daughter is the only one in her class where both her parents have no French blood,” said Mr Liao, who relocated to Singapore from Beijing last year. “Most of her classmates have either a mother or father with French blood.

“But my wife and I used to study in France, and we thought it would be good to let her learn another language apart from Mandarin and English.”

Despite his initial hesitation, Lea has coped thanks to a programme called the French Passerelle, a formal integration programme designed specifically to help students from a non-French background learn the language and better assimilate into the school.  

SPECIAL PROGRAMMES TO HELP STUDENTS ASSIMILATE

While LFS has mostly French-speaking students, chairman of the school’s board Axel Foucault noted that it has always accepted non-French speaking students, particularly at the kindergarten and primary levels. To ensure these students integrate, the school has organised dedicated French classes with a qualified teacher, to help students quickly learn the basics required to follow the French curriculum.

However, the French Passerelle programme, which was first launched in September 2017, offers personalised support for each child throughout his or her time in the school.

For example, kindergarten and elementary students in the programme are integrated in standard classes and follow the French curriculum, while receiving French language lessons in small groups with a qualified teacher.

“We accompany the students to ensure they make progress quickly in French, through full immersion,” explainedChristian Soulard, principal of the LFS. “Children participate in most activities of the class during the week.

“Their progress in French is spectacular and we progressively diminish the tuition as their learning and fluency improve.”

Through a partnership with the Alliance Francaise de Singapour, the school offers older children intensive classes and holiday camps during school holidays. There is also a buddy system for all students to help them with their social integration into the school.

“We also expect a commitment from the parents,” added Mr Soulard. This includes the promotion of French at home through films, television, books and lessons. “We also ask them to attend regular Meet-The-Teacher sessions.”

There are similar programmes in other international schools, particularly those which are traditionally associated with a language other than English.

The Swiss School in Singapore (SSiS), which is a German-speaking school, offers language support in German through qualified support teachers within all its classes. “All students who are not able to follow regular classes in German receive additional encouragement in small groups beyond regular school lessons,” said a school spokesperson.  

Last year, the school also launched an Afternoon Extension Programme that offers non-German speaking children language preparation for kindergarten and primary school, through optional afternoon classes.

“Through a variety of activities such as reading and storytelling, singing, painting, excursions and more, qualified teachers promote the children’s German language skills specifically and give them individual support,” said SSiS. “The interest in these classes and the success in terms of children’s language acquisition skills have been overwhelming.”

ENROLMENT INTO MAINSTREAM SCHOOLS A CHALLENGING PROCESS

These new programmes come on the back of growing interest in sending children to such schools. SSiS estimates that about 60 per cent of its children speak German as their first language. These children are mainly from Swiss or German families. The other 40 per cent of its students either do not speak German as their first language, or speak multiple languages at home, one of which might be German.

“The trend shows that we have “more and more registrations from families with international backgrounds who do not speak German at home,” it added.

While LFS does not track its enrollment by nationality, Mr Soulard noted that after the launch of the French Passerelle programme, there was a “significant increase” in the number of non-French speaking students joining the school. He estimated that between 2016 and 2017, the increase in such students was about 140 per cent, which is “significantly higher” than the overall increase in net registrations.

One other possible reason for the increase is the challenge international students face in enrolling in local schools.

Mr Liao was initially looking forward to placing Lea in a local school, and had enrolled her in a preparatory programme for the Admissions Exercise for International Students (AEIS). This exercise, conducted by the Ministry of Education (MOE), is a centralised admissions exercise that takes place in September or October each year, for students who wish to join mainstream primary and secondary schools in January of the following year.

International students in MOE schools form about 5 per cent of the total student population in primary and secondary schools, said MOE in response to Channel NewsAsia’s queries. “The proportion has remained fairly constant over the past few years, and the majority of international students are from countries in ASEAN and Asia.”

“Admission to MOE’s mainstream schools via the AEIS is dependent on the applicant’s performance in a test and available vacancies,” it added.

But Mr Liao pointed out that for parents like himself, getting a child into a mainstream school can appear to be a challenging process.

“Every parent trusts the Singapore school system,” he said. “And we have no concerns about the quality or anything like that. But we know that competition to get in is tough.”

He explained that while the environment of the preparatory school his daughter attended was good and she was happy to go to school every day, he had noticed that some of her classmates had been there for as long as two years.

“They had repeatedly tried the AEIS, and they repeatedly failed,” he said. “The school was good, but it’s not meant for children to stay there long-term.”

Mr Liao added that the results of the AEIS are also not transparent, explaining that the results only indicate whether the child is admitted, or not. Furthermore, should his daughter be successfully admitted, he pointed out that she would be held back at least one or two years.  

He noted that most of his daughter’s classmates at the AEIS preparatory programme would have opted for schools like the Australian International School, or Singapore American School, where the teaching language is English. But he decided to go for the LFS, and he is pleased with his daughter’s progress. 

“She doesn’t understand everything that is in the textbooks yet, but she understands the teachers and can follow what is happening,” he said. “The teachers are also very kind, and they don’t mind repeating themselves if my daughter doesn’t understand.”

SINGAPORE: An eatery centred around the pungent tropical fruit durian has caught a whiff of success as patrons flock to the cafe in droves for a bite of its exotic offerings.

The spiky fruit long regarded as a delicacy in Southeast Asia has left a divisive trail – you either love it or hate it – and its odour means it is banned in most hotels and MRT trains.

Detractors often describe its intense smell as a mix of gym socks and onions, while enthusiasts liken the creamy texture and intense aroma to blue cheese.

While the bittersweet fruit is usually eaten on its own or as dessert, the Mao Shan Wang cafe in the Chinatown district has a special menu with durian in all dishes, even savoury ones.

Customers can opt for chicken nuggets with a durian dip, pizza topped with durian flesh, fries with a side of durian sauce, all washed down with coffee – durian infused, of course.

“Durian is (usually) eaten by itself and as sweets or treats, but what our company wanted to do was put it with savoury stuff like fries and nuggets,” company spokesman Lance Lee told AFP.

“We will be looking to expand the offerings as well, with maybe rice, pasta and other things.”

Mao Shan Wang, Chinese for Cat Mountain King, refers to a strain of durian from Kelantan state in neighbouring Malaysia distinguished by its bittersweet taste and small seeds.

More adventurous customers, most of them tourists, were seen trying the strong-smelling fruit – while wearing gloves.

Many were also waiting in line to buy durian-flavoured confectionery, and even freshly cut up fruit conveniently sealed in vacuum packs for their plane journey.

American tourist Michael Capps, who had been trying fresh durian straight from the husk, said he was a convert.

“It’s hard to explain the taste to it, but it actually has like a sweet taste to it and it’s very good.”

SINGAPORE: Scientists at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) have created a customisable, fabric-like power source that can be cut, folded or stretched without losing its function.

In a news release on Tuesday (Jan 30), NTU said the team, led by Professor Chen Xiaodong, Associate Chair (Faculty) at the School of Materials Science & Engineering, reported their findings in the journal Advanced Materials and have filed a patent for the technology.

In addition to creating a wearable power source which works like a fast-charging battery that can be recharged many times, the scientists also made the power source or “supercapacitor” customisable or “editable”.

This means its structure and shape can be changed after it is manufactured, while retaining its function as a power source. While existing stretchable supercapacitors are made into predetermined designs and structures, the new invention can be stretched multi-directionally and is less likely to be mismatched when it is joined up to other electrical components, NTU said.

Professor Chen said: “A reliable and editable supercapacitor is important for development of the wearable electronics industry. It also opens up all sorts of possibilities in the realm of the ‘Internet-of-Things’ when wearable electronics can reliably power themselves and connect and communicate with appliances in the home and other environments.

“My own dream is to one day combine our flexible supercapacitors with wearable sensors for health and sports performance diagnostics. With the ability for wearable electronics to power themselves, you could imagine the day when we create a device that could be used to monitor a marathon runner during a race with great sensitivity, detecting signals from both under and over-exertion.”

The new supercapacitor, when edited into a honeycomb-like structure, has the ability to store an electrical charge four times higher than most existing stretchable supercapacitors. Additionally, when stretched to four times its original length, it maintains nearly 98 per cent of the initial ability to store electrical energy, even after 10,000 stretch-and-release cycles, NTU added.

Experiments conducted by Professor Chen and his team also showed that when the editable supercapacitor was paired with a sensor and placed on the human elbow, it performed better than existing stretchable supercapacitors. 

The editable supercapacitor was able to provide a stable stream of signals even when the arm was swinging. These signals are then transmitted wirelessly to external devices, such as one that captures a patient’s heart rate.   

The editable supercapacitor is made of strengthened manganese dioxide nanowire composite material. While manganese dioxide is a common material for supercapacitors, the “ultralong nanowire structure”, strengthened by a network of carbon nanotubes and nanocellulose fibres, allows the electrodes to withstand the associated strains during the customisation process, NTU said.

Professor Chen and his team believe that the editable supercapacitor could be easily mass-produced as it would rely on existing manufacturing technologies. NTU said the team estimates that production costs could be as low as S$0.13 to produce a square-centimeter of the material.

The NTU team also collaborated with Dr Loh Xian Jun, Senior Scientist and Head of the Soft Materials Department at the Institute of Materials Research and Engineering (IMRE), Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR).

Dr Loh said: “Customisable and versatile, these interconnected, fabric-like power sources are able to offer a plug-and-play functionality while maintaining good performance. Being highly stretchable, these flexible power sources are promising next-generation ‘fabric’ energy storage devices that could be integrated into wearable electronics.”