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INSPIRED by International Women’s Day, we celebrate the indispensable contribution of females to the medical industry by introducing our readers to some amazing women who are within our midst.
Often doing things which we take for granted, they each have a story. Here are two of them.
Roziah Mohd Din, devoted since her early years
One thing that is clear within five minutes of meeting Nurse Roziah is that she could easily have been an entertainer. I was pleasantly surprised when she was cracking jokes and laughing. She even told me that she dances and sings to reduce her work stress. In fact, at Park City Medical Centre where she works, she often performs at the company dinners and her entertaining stints are well received.
The native of Teluk Intan was raised by her father, a technician in Tenaga Nasional Bhd, and her mother who was a housewife. She remembers when she was in school at Sekolah Kebangsaan Seri Perak, a teacher asked her what her ambition was. Then and there she said she wanted to be a doctor because she always yearned to be in healthcare.
After school, she started working in Anson Clinic under Dr Lim Yew Chow. During her three years there, he taught her a lot and made her assist him during procedures to learn. In fact, he encouraged her to go for an interview at Subang Jaya Medical Centre (SJMC) in 1988. That literally changed her trajectory in life as she succeeded and started as a hospital aid. In government circles the post was known as an “ammah”.
Working in SJMC was extremely beneficial, as they were constantly capacity-building their staff by sending them for courses and lectures. Roziah participated in many of these courses and became a senior hospital aid and then a state-enrolled nurse (SEN) before more training helped her become a state registered nurse (SRN) in 2000.
In the midst of all that, she got married in 1997. When she was encouraged to go for the SRN qualification, she did so with the support of her husband, leaving her eldest daughter with her mum and husband. Even though this was a challenge for her as a young mother, she managed to prevail.
Another thing that is quite admirable about Roziah is that she has a calm head on her shoulders. Since day one at SJMC, she has been posted in the emergency room (ER), and her character was noticed by her seniors.
In 2012, Roziah was seconded to Park City Medical Centre to set up the ER department. She had to build a team to manage trauma response, and she made sure it ran both efficiently and effectively as lives were at stake. During this period, she sent many of her team as well as herself for continuous training and continued to build capacity.
In 2020 she was promoted as duty nursing administrator after helping to set up clinics for Covid-19. Although she is a nurse she believes in some traditional medicine and during the pandemic she ensured that she kept to both western and traditional precautions to keep herself Covid free. This helped her remain uninfected till today even though she worked in the ER, which is no mean feat.
Numerous times during her career, she was offered to work overseas but she felt she was happy working here in Malaysia with a great team and good support, and decided against it.
She admits that today the role of a nurse is quite demanding as you need a lot of patience to work in dealing with not only doctors and specialists but also patients who need urgent care. People dealing with the stress of loved ones being in trauma can also be difficult to manage.
Roziah’s best memory as a nurse was when she was in SJMC. An adult came to say hello to her and reminded her that Roziah took care of her when she had an asthma attack as a child. She is also recognised at the pasar malam while she shops for her groceries.
A funny episode she shared was when a patient brought her and her ER colleagues some durians and left them outside the ER for them to collect later.
Roziah is definitely one who loves her job and her career as a nurse. She even revels in it with her belief and dedication towards helping people as though they were part of her own family. Being a DNA at Park City Medical Centre is a role she takes seriously, as the added responsibility to motivate, train and educate her team of nurses brings immense satisfaction to her.
Mariammah Krishnan, driven from humble beginnings
Mariammah from Jasin, Melaka, is the only child from a poor family. Her mother was a single mum who made ends meet by working as a rubber tapper. Mariammah recalls the hardship of travelling all the way to Sek Men Sultan Mansur Shah in Tampin for her secondary education as that was the closest school for her.
When she was young, she wanted to be a doctor but her weakness in mathematics made it difficult. She only managed to go to school until the PMR level, and then dropped out to help her mum in the estates.
At 22, she got married to Suppiah Ganapathy and moved to Kuala Lumpur to be with her husband who worked in Kuala Lumpur City Hall. She got a job in computer company. Eventually, she went for an open interview she saw in the newspapers then and joined Hospital Kuala Lumpur as a health attendant in 2004. Immediately upon securing the role, she was sent for training to Hospital Tumpat in Kelantan.
Returning after training, her first posting was in maintenance where she helped assist with the sterilisation of operation equipment. Here she learnt a lot about the necessity and importance of hygiene in healthcare.
Three years later she was posted to the nephrology department, and she began by helping with filing, checking vitals of patients, and then logging patient information for the clinicians.
While here she went for more courses, which taught her CPR, hand washing techniques and helping with ensuring that patient diets were adhered to, and she was tasked with moving patients to and from the wards.
Mariammah loves working in the friendly atmosphere at the nephrology ward in HKL. She began under department head Datuk Ghazalli Ahmad and is now under Dr Sunita Bavanandan. She says that the department feels very family-like and thus she relishes the feeling as she rarely if ever feels stressed coming to work.
She feels extremely lucky that she decided many years ago to apply for this post and make a difference to many people she meets at her workplace.
Mariammah has three children – Sharmila Devi, Shalini Devi and son Satish Kumar. She is quite proud of them and remarked that her second daughter Shalini now works in a pharmacy under the Ministry of Health whilst her eldest daughter and her son work in DBKL. – The Vibes, March 10, 2024
