For many donors at Bloodbank@HSA, Staff Nurse (SN) Candy Galang is a familiar figure – constantly attending to donors with a ready smile, and an earnest dedication to ensuring a safe and smooth process for blood donors. Most donors know her by name. Even so, not many are aware that SN Candy’s journey as a nursing professional initially started in accountancy.
“I had studied accountancy and after that, had gotten a job as a Remittance Teller. But I always had an interest in nursing, and during the SARS pandemic in 2003, I took up an opportunity offered by NTUC Union to train as an Inpatient Care Assistant,” recounts SN Candy.
“Shortly after, I joined the Health Sciences Authority (HSA) as a Donor Aide. Since then, I’ve continually taken various courses to further develop my nursing skills and knowledge – NITEC nursing course (completed in 2008), Diploma in Health Sciences (Nursing) at Ngee Ann Poly (completed in 2012), and currently Bachelor of Nursing at La Trobe University.”
Indeed, her technical competency coupled with her warm and engaging nature have enabled her to forge strong bonds with blood donors, and led to her numerous awards and accolades over the years, including HSA’s Outstanding Service for Customer Award and Excellent Service Award as well as the Singapore Health Quality Service Award.
For SN Candy, providing good donor care and ensuring a positive experience for blood donors are simply part and parcel of her job.
“Majority of the apheresis donors are regular donors, and some may have donated 50 times, 100 times or even 200 times. Nevertheless, I still treat each one as if they were a first-time donor, that is, by being gentle and careful,” says SN Candy.
“And if providing them with a good donation experience can encourage them to return regularly, then all the more it’s important that I do so for every donor that comes in.”
But it is not only in her capacity as Staff Nurse that Candy strives to contribute to the National Blood Programme. In 2019, she started collaborating with fellow members of a Filipino community group to organise blood donation activities.
“The group’s members are from the northern part of the Philippines. They speak Ilocano (a regional dialect), and they come together to create a family-like environment to support one another and to give back to the local community in Singapore,” explains SN Candy.
“When I proposed the idea of a blood donation drive at Bloodbank@HSA, there was a lot of support among the members, and we worked with the Singapore Red Cross’s Blood Donor Programme to organise four drives in 2019 and 2020. Many were impressed by the blood donation process here, including the fact that a local anesthesia is applied before blood donation, making it a relatively painless process.”
From Inpatient Care Assistant to Staff Nurse, the mother-of-two has certainly come a long way, driven largely by her passion to serve.
“Nursing is really a calling for me, and as a Staff Nurse with HSA, I will always do my best to ensure that every donor has a safe and good donation experience, and every patient receives the safest blood possible. Organising blood donation drive is another way by which I can contribute and help patients who are in need of blood.”