LIONS BEFRIENDERS SERVICE ASSOCIATION (SINGAPORE)
HEAD OFFICE
Our 10 AACs and 6 Offices Located Across the Island
LIONS BEFRIENDERS SERVICE ASSOCIATION (SINGAPORE)
HEAD OFFICE
Our 10 AACs and 6 Offices Located Across the Island
LIONS BEFRIENDERS SERVICE ASSOCIATION (SINGAPORE)
HEAD OFFICE
Our 10 AACs and 6 Offices Located Across the Island
Angeline “Angie” Ang doesn’t come across like someone who’s been a nurse for nearly four decades. She has the energy of someone half her age, a sharp wit, and a laugh that erupts without warning — the kind that fills a room and softens even the toughest people.
Behind that cheerfulness is a woman forged in fire: in ICUs and children’s wards, in cramped rental flats, in living rooms filled with silence, grief, or just too many things and not enough love. A woman who has seen the extremes of life and death and has chosen, again and again, to stand in the middle of it with her heart wide open.
Today, at 59, Angie is a pioneer nurse with the Home Personal Care (HPC) team at Lions Befrienders (LB). She doesn’t just check vitals. She walks into the lives of some of Singapore’s most vulnerable seniors — and stays. She brings medicine when needed, wisdom always, and, above all, a deep and lasting kind of love.
“I don’t just do nursing,” she says. “I aim to establish trust. I make sure they feel safe.”
A Calling That Was Never Part of the Plan
She didn’t set out to be a nurse. “I wanted to be a police officer,” she laughs. “But my dad said, ‘You never die before … Can you be a nurse like your mother.” She shrugs, smiling. “So, I had no choice. And somehow, it became my calling.”
Angie trained in general hospitals before specialising in neonatal and paediatric intensive care. Her early years were spent caring for the most fragile of lives — premature babies, children fighting cancer, young ones in and out of surgery. Those memories still sit quietly in her heart.
“There was this little boy from Indonesia — he had eight heart defects. We nursed him through multiple surgeries. He would hug me every time he came back for review. I bought him toys.” She pauses. “Then one day… he didn’t come out of the OT (Operation Theatre) alive. That one broke me.”
She tried to carry on but with every loss, something shifted. “I guess there is a time for everything and I think my season with ICU work had come to an end and I want to do something different.”
From ICU to HDB Flats
That search led her, eventually, to community work after being a nurse for almost 40 years. In 2017, she joined Lions Befrienders as one of the first nurses in its then-new Home Personal Care team.
“It’s a different world,” she says. “In hospitals, once they discharge, you’re done. But in the community, they still call you. They still need you.”
And the needs are real. Many of the seniors Angie cares for live alone, isolated not just physically, but emotionally. Some suffer from dementia, others from mental health issues or deep-set trauma. Many are simply helplessly lonely.
Tough Love, Tender Moments
Everyday care, for Angie, means getting close — even when things get messy. She recalls one visit where a senior’s food flew into her coffee.
“You must be okay with food flying out of their mouth, onto your plate, into your face — or your coffee. You just pick it out and drink like nothing happened.”
She laughs, but it’s clear: this is nursing that asks for more than clinical skills. It takes curiosity, compassion, and the courage to sit in discomfort — and still stay.
“You can’t just treat the surface,” Angie says. “You have to ask: why is this happening? What pain is underneath?”
Angie calls it “street nursing” — a kind of care that’s not just clinical, but intuitive, flexible, and deeply human.
One where you need EQ, where you need to sense what’s wrong, not just see it.
The Team She Built, the Family She Made
But Angie doesn’t do this work alone. She leads a team of caregivers, many of whom have overcome difficult personal histories — divorce, abuse, prison. Some are mothers re-entering the workforce. Others are building back from trauma.
“Some of my girls are from Daughters of Tomorrow. I will match them with the right senior. Slowly they find love, they find purpose.”
Every morning at 6 a.m., the team starts their WhatsApp check-in. They coordinate, troubleshoot, and quietly hold each other up.
“One of my girls went through a painful divorce. One morning, she didn’t reply in the chat. We went to her flat, found her crying. Made her Milo, sat with her.” That’s what her team does. They rally around each other.
For Angie, this work is not just a job. “I love my girls very much. I always tell them: you send me the difficult cases first, so you don’t need to stress. I protect you first.”
Waving Goodbye, and Letting Go
So how does Angie cope with the emotional weight of her work?
“I like to hang out at Changi Airport,” she says, straight-faced, which some say is the happiest place in Singapore.
There’s something about the energy there that lifts her mood. “Because of the vibes — it gives me very joyful and happy vibes,” she explains. Sometimes, she heads to the departure hall, not to travel, but for something unusual. “I just pop in, and wave at strangers. Just wave and say ‘Bye-bye.’ People wave back. Don’t know why, but it helps.”
That small moment — of waving to people she doesn’t know, and being waved at in return — gives her a kind of emotional reset. It’s a way to let go, without needing to explain anything.
And she follows that closely. “We journey alongside seniors, serving them where and when they need assistance. We are here to recommend solutions and it’s for seniors to decide how best they want their problems to be solved. We should never carry seniors’ problems on our shoulders. You don’t carry it. You’re not supposed to.”
Joy, Despite Everything
Her days are often chaotic. Some clients yell. Some cry. Some give silent thanks in the form of kopi, a slice of cake, or just a look. But at the end of the day, Angie goes to bed with a full heart.
“Every night, I lie in bed and smile. Even on the hard days. I say, ‘It was a good day.’”
Her joy doesn’t come from smooth outcomes. It comes from presence, from knowing she did her part, from staying long after most people would have left.
To the Next Generation: Step In, Don’t Step Away
To younger nurses wondering if community care is “lesser” than hospital work, Angie has a clear message:
“Come out. Come into the community. Reach out to the seniors, the ones no one else sees. You’ll discover a part of yourself you didn’t know.”
She believes the work has more than clinical value — it teaches character, resilience, empathy.
“You give one apple, you’ll get three back. Always.”
If you would like to share your thoughts on these stories, please feel free to email us at cp@lb.org.sg
If you know of seniors who could use our services, you can help by referring them to us.
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