Long before resort-like retirement homes and sanctuaries for seniors, there was Nancy Chang and her care homes.
There were no swimming pools, karaoke rooms or sophisticated 24-hour access to medical facilities next door, but Nancy invested her time and heart in caring for them.
The first home she started in 1992 was aptly named Care Villa. It was housed in a single-storey bungalow on a sprawling land in Ipoh.
Walking into Care Villa in the morning, you could hear her commanding and gravelling voice giving instructions to the helpers or you would find her “swashbuckling” with her ladles and wok in front of a stove.
Her other passion is cooking and pairing the two passions would culminate in the residents’ favourite dishes. “I spare no ingredients to make sure that they get a good nutritious soup every day,” she would add.
When she’s done cooking lunch Nancy walks around to dispense the prescribed medicines to those who need them. An essential part of her role as a caregiver is to know the various medical conditions and how to manage them. This has also helped her to get familiarised with the names and uses of various medicines.
She would get everyone out of their rooms to take in the morning air and enjoy some social interaction.
After 30 years in the business, Nancy is touted “Queen of nursing homes” to which she responded, “At the height of my business I had my hand in 15 homes. Though the public referred to them as nursing homes, we are care homes. Our services included palliative care, recuperation and nursing care.”
“Dementia patients are the most difficult to handle,” Nancy who learnt to handle them and acquired vast experiences through the years says the carer needs to pay careful attention to the patient. There must be a caregiver watching over them all the time.
“And we need to be resourceful too,” she laughs as she remembers an 80-year-old patient with dementia whom they had difficulty keeping her from running off.
“We piled up unused beds to form a barricade to prevent her from ‘escaping’ but somehow she managed to climb up and over the barricade, one bed at a time!”
Today, she is semi-retired as she will be 80 years old next year. After a long gratifying run in the business, Nancy sold most of her care homes seven years ago except for 5 where she holds consultative roles.
Reminiscing the past, Nancy says her day began with going to the market nearby to load her car with fresh food for cooking three meals for nearly 90 people every day. After lunch, she would find time to chat or sing with the more lucid ones. She would also go to her other homes to check on the residents.
“I don’t believe in letting families leave their aged parents or seniors here to wait for death. And I don’t take those patients who are fatally ill. To make sure that the patients are well cared for, you can’t just leave it to the helpers.
“I stayed there the whole day until after dinner time and I would leave only after I have put them to bed,” says Nancy.
“Caring for sick and aged is neither easy nor appealing, especially in the 70s when I first started. You need passion and I came from a background of working with the handicapped as in deaf and mute.
“I was trained in sign language and worked as a court interpreter until I opted for retirement in 1992. Having worked with the disabled I transitioned with ease towards caring for the aged.”
Over the years, Nancy has tried to keep from being emotionally attached to the residents knowing some of them could die in her care homes. Sometimes the families would request her to arrange for a funeral caretaker. “However, I would still feel sad once in a while when I bump into their children, spouse or relative.
“I always encourage the families to visit the old folks while they are alive so that they won’t feel left behind. During Christmas and Chinese New Year, I would cook up a big sumptuous buffet spread and get the relatives to come and share the meal with them.” Soon this became an event both residents and families looked forward to every year.
Leaving behind decades of caring for other people’s families and parents, Nancy who has 6 children, now spends time doting on her 8 grandchildren.
For Nancy, her gratifying moment is when she receives a patient whom the hospital has diagnosed as having ‘no cure’ but at the care home, they managed to nurse the patient back to health.
She may have retired but is still quick to get up and help an old frail person up the steps or onto a chair.– JE Tan
