SINGAPORE: The Catholic Nurses’ Guild of Singapore (CNGS) recently celebrated the 50th anniversary of its foundation by reiterating its pledge to keep up with its motto of comfort, compassion and tender loving care.
Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the group ditched a flamboyant celebration of the golden jubilee, holding a low-key program to mark the anniversary late last year with its 250 member nurses.
Founded in 1970, the CNGS bears the legacy of Father Albert Fortier, a French missionary priest from the Paris Foreign Missions Society who started the Catholic Nurses' Guild in Malaysia, then Malaya, back in 1947.
While dispensing pastoral care to the sick in hospitals, Father Fortier was moved by the loneliness of young nurses who were posted to hospitals far from their hometowns. The priest set up the support group-cum-faith community for Catholic nurses in Kedah with five members. He later started another branch in capital Kuala Lumpur in 1948.