I am a Singaporean working in the most underpaid and super unappreciated profession called Nurse/Care Associate in Nursing Homes. Our salaries are depressed because the homes hire so many foreign workers from Philippines, Myanmar, India, etc and they pay them so little (<$1.5K and for new hires as low as $400).
And yet, we are overworked, don’t get much leave, must receive and handle shit (sometimes literally) from our patients and are SUPER UNDERPAID.
We hire low quality foreigners that we have to train (even in basic hygiene) and must be on shift 24 hours. Its like being an A&E nurse but receiving a fraction of the benefits of working in a hospital. I have colleagues that have to take care of more than 6 wards like 40+ residents at any one time. We have to bath them, carry them, cloth them, clean them, feed some of them and even entertain them!
same excuse “We don’t have the budget.” or “We must follow govt sector salary guidelines”.
Recently we changed our functional food order to this new company that sell special food to some of our patients. We used to use thickeners that only cost $1-2 per meal. I found out from my colleagues that each meal now cost >$10!!!!
In this CNA documentary, you can see how the functional food does not look like the packaging.
https://youtu.be/PRemfpdpaQU?t=33m6s
Its slimy and totally unappetizing! And yet we shell out so much money for the food. YET, we can’t increase our own salaries! The food smell so bad I have had patients asking if they can eat their old diet but we were instructed to continue feeding them this.
We also spend so much money on renovation, new fancy exercise hospital equipment when we don’t need it and some of these equipment cost more than a few hundred thousand dollars! Yet, at the same time, we continue to depress our nurse’s salaries. This cannot go on like this. I have a family to feed with 1 baby and am seriously considering changing my job.
The nursing homes need us Singaporeans to make up the SG quota so if they want us to continue they have to do something about this, I hope the