26 May 2003
Dear Fellow Singaporeans,
On behalf of the Board of Trustees and Working Committee of The Courage Fund, I write to thank you for your generous support towards The Courage Fund.
The Courage Fund stands today at over $9.7 million. This does not include the $1 million top up and the one-for-one matching by the Singapore Government. The figure is extremely significant given that the Fund was started barely seven weeks ago.
SARS had descended upon Singapore and the rest of the world silently and with such speed that all of us, including our healthcare workers, were taken by surprise in the initial stages of this epidemic. Even for those of us who did not have the privilege of being directly involved in patient care, we can still vividly remember the anxieties in the healthcare sector during the period. The disease was new and deadly, and no one could tell for sure whether any of the infection control measures put in place were really effective. I recall some nurses telling me of their anxieties in the first two weeks of the outbreak, when they had to tend to patients in the SARS wards, knowing there was an unseen enemy which could potentially take away their lives and indirectly endanger their loved ones at home.
Yet, true to the calling of medicine, our healthcare workers have responded to this crisis with valour and courage. They stood steadfast to do a job that only they alone were trained to do. At all levels, from healthcare attendants to doctors, ordinary men and women showed extraordinary courage through their dedication, commitment and the sacrifices that many of them have to make. Some of these sacrifices were costly and painful. We lost five of our brave healthcare workers in the battle against SARS; two doctors, a local and a foreign nurse, and a healthcare attendant. They had contracted and succumbed to the virus from patients that they had cared for in the early days of the disease when little was known about SARS. Many of us are still coming to terms with their untimely departure.
The Courage Fund was started first and foremost to pay tribute to the courage of our healthcare workers in the fight against SARS. It is our small way of telling them that we know of their concerns and sacrifices, and that we appreciate and admire their courage in overcoming them. They are the heroes and heroines who have fought with great spirit to help us win this war.. It is a spirit that has brought us great inspiration at an extraordinary time of hardship, and we want to applaud it and be identified with it.
We are gratified that Singaporeans have responded with such an overwhelming outpouring of support since the Fund was launched. While we were confident that the Fund would receive widespread support, we were amazed by the speed at which it had built up. For those of us who are directly involved in organising The Courage Fund, it has been heart-warming to see the spontaneous flood of proposals and contributions from the man in the street to Government leaders, from young children to talented artists, from the small shopkeepers to big multinational corporations, from Singaporeans overseas to expatriate communities here, all offering their own precious time, resources and ideas to help the Fund.
The Fund has succeeded because you, Singaporeans and our friends in Singapore, had wanted it to be a resounding success. This is your strongest message to our healthcare workers that they are not alone in the fight against SARS. To win the fight, it is important for them to know that they have the whole country behind them.
The responsibility of using the Fund collected is a heavy one, and it is one that the Board of Trustees takes seriously. Singaporeans have contributed generously to the Fund to help SARS victims and healthcare workers, and it is our responsibility to see to it that the Fund is used meaningfully for this purpose. Thus far, the Fund has been utilised for the following purposes:
(i) Provide immediate relief to patients and healthcare workers who contracted SARS and those who have unfortunately lost their lives to SARS;
(ii) Provide hospitalisation relief to patients who are warded in the hospitals for observation or because they are suspected to have SARS; and
(iii) Provide education grants to children of healthcare workers who passed away in the line of duty in the fight against SARS.
Two of our healthcare workers who passed away have left behind five young children. Personally, I am glad that under the scheme to provide education grants, we are able to help them financially in their education until they achieve basic university degree.
Looking forward, to cater to future occurrence of serious SARS episodes, a portion of the money raised will be put aside as reserve to assist healthcare workers and SARS victims. For the balance of the Fund, the Board of Trustees will carefully consider how it can be best channelled into projects which have long-lasting symbolic value to honour our healthcare workers for their outstanding courage during this period. We will be consulting representatives of the healthcare community to seek their inputs and releasing details of our proposals in due course.
Several fund raising projects that have already been planned in the spirit of The Courage Fund will be implemented in the coming months. We believe that together with what has been collected so far, they will bring in adequate funding for what we wish to achieve. Beyond these, we will be taking a pause and will not be initiating and endorsing new fund raising projects. For projects that have already been planned, we hope you will continue to support them.
SARS has affected all of us here in Singapore, in one way or another. For some, it has meant a deep personal loss, for others economic hardships and other sacrifices. The Courage Fund is a symbol of what we Singaporeans can achieve to help one another if we are prepared to work together and to play our part. We hope that this strong community spirit that has made the Fund a success will live on to support other causes that promote public spiritedness, determination and cohesion. In fighting SARS, we as a society have fostered greater collegiality, responsibility, unity and fighting spirit. Through our collective hard work and efforts, we are confident that the current situation will stabilise and that life in Singapore will return to normal. While SARS has cast a dark cloud over Singapore, we can look forward to the future when we can truly say to our children that these days were indeed some of Singapore’s finest!
With heartfelt thanks,
Mr Michael Lim Choo San Chairman, Board of Trustees The Courage Fund The daily breakdown is as follows:
Corporate Donations $6,211,882.07
New donations today $ 6,958.00
Total to date $6,218,840.07
Public Donations $3,527,257.85
New donations today $ 31,603.23
Total to date $3,558,861.08
The Fund to date stands at $9,777,701.15. This sum does not include the government’s $1M contribution and dollar-for-dollar match |
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