As others celebrate Nurses Day, these 'missys' instead feed the homeless

PETALING JAYA: While nurses around the world see the International Nurses Day (IND) as a day to mark their contributions to society, a group of nurses from the Gleneagles Kuala Lumpur Hospital had a slightly different approach to it.
Fifteen of them took time off from their Sunday evening instead to serve some 100 homeless people at the KL Pit Stop Community Cafe, here at the city centre, today.
Gleneagles KL marketing and corporate communications senior manager (community service) Samiha Abd Aziz said nurses from the hospital would take part in activities that engage with society every year in conjunction with IND that falls on May 12.
"What's special about this project is that it is supposed to be their celebration, but instead they still find time to contribute to society," she told reporters during the event.
The homeless people were given a pack of nasi lemak and used clothes contributed by the hospital, together with red bean soup and chicken porridge by the cafe.
Clinical resource nurse Thean Chai Wan, who is also the hospital's nurses day committee vice-chairman and who has been in the industry for 13 years, said it was a privilege to be a part of a project that contributed to the public.
She said most of the nurses who joined the programme today were on their off day, while several others had just completed their shift in the evening before joining.
Meanwhile, KL Pit Stop Community Cafe co-founder Joycelyn Lee said they were delighted to be chosen by Gleneagles to collaborate for the project, adding: "Nurses are often under-appreciated, so we are very happy to be doing this with them today."
The cafe, which started operating last year, serves lunch in the afternoon, and closes at 3pm daily to prepare food to be given to the homeless in the evening.
She said the cafe, which accepts public donations in order to purchase food on a daily basis for the homeless, would cook enough food to cater up to 300 people per day.