PETALING JAYA, March 24 ― Thanks to a friendly nudge from their mother, four sisters are offering free childcare services for medical frontliners at the Sultan Ismail Hospital (HSI) in Johor Baru.
Nur Nabilah Mohd Zohar uploaded a post onto her Facebook page last week, offering all doctors and nurses in need of a reliable childcare provider to look after their children - for free.
“As we all know, with the movement control order (MCO) declared on March 18, all childcare centres have been closed. We as a family want to offer our services to help take care of your children while the MCO is in effect.”
The Johorean told mStar that she was stumped for ideas of different ways that she could help out the frontliners with the MCO in effect, and was given the idea to provide free childcare from her mother, Rozilah Moin.
“My house is five minutes away from HSI. My mom said everyone else is contributing food and money. Why don't we contribute manpower?” said Nabilah.
“After posting the advertisement on Facebook, about 10 doctors and nurses approached me. There was even one police officer, but in the end, only one family sent their kids over.”
She expressed that a nurse had accepted her offer and will send over her four children to Nabilah’s home until the MCO is over on March 31 ― from 12:30pm to around 10pm daily.
Nabilah, 26, added that she hopes to help out at least one other family, to avoid gathering too many people together during the MCO period, as she is eager to pitch in given that she doesn’t have to travel to work for her tax executive job.
“At first I predicted that it would be around two families only. We don’t want to take on too many either and put the kids at risk.”
She also reassured the frontliners at HSI that they will be able to focus on treating those infected with the Covid-19 virus diligently, without having to worry about their children.
Nabilah, and her three sisters ― Izzati Nabihah, Izzati Najihah and Nadzirah ― have plenty of experience taking care of children, as all four of them have previous working experience in childcare centres with two of them also having a certified license as well.
“Last time, once I was done with school I’d go straight to work at my aunt’s childcare centre. All four of us used to work there,” she said.
“Even our mom helps out to take care of the nurse’s four kids. The nurse offered to provide them with her own food, but we said that we will cook for them.
“We’re offering this service for free because we feel sorry for them, watching them work so hard like that.”
Social media users have praised Nabilah and her sisters for showing solidarity and thinking of the frontliners during this difficult period.
Malaysia enters its seventh day of the nationwide Movement Control Order toay since it came into effect, to help curb the spread of Covid-19 in the country.
