SINGAPORE – Being tethered to a dialysis machine three times a week keeps kidney patients Chew Teck Seng and Malathy Naga Rathnam alive. But it has also made it nearly impossible for them to find employment.
Lamenting the challenges that patients face, 53-year-old Mr Chew, who used to work as a technical specialist, said: “Kidney failure and the frequent dialysis have set limits on me physically, but I am still mentally capable to take on work.”
Echoing his sentiments, 40-year-old Ms Malathy, a former healthcare worker, said: “Only my kidneys are not working. Other than that, I am fine.”
A job fair on Oct 29, 2025, that was focused on inclusive hiring helped them surmount these challenges and become gainfully employed, alongside at least 12 other patients on dialysis.
The job fair was co-organised by the National Kidney Foundation (NKF), and local social enterprise The Social Equity (TSE), which promotes social inclusion.
TSE organises physical job fairs and runs the goodJobs online platform, which currently boasts more than 50,000 active hiring positions.
Statistics from NKF showed that of the over 5,400 NKF patients undergoing haemodialysis, 37 per cent are retired, 21 per cent are employed, and the remaining 42 per cent, or 2,285 patients, are currently unemployed.
Almost half of those unemployed, some 1,090 people, do actually seek employment, but face challenges in securing opportunities.
To boost their chances of being employed, TSE roped in 18 employers for the All Inclusive NKF Community Job Fair, through which both Mr Chew and Ms Malathy found new work.
For Mr Chew, who is married with two children, it marked his return to the workforce after a self-imposed hiatus of three months. He was retrenched in August 2025 from his first job of 28 years.
In 2015, he had his right kidney removed due to a malignant tumour, and his left kidney the following year for the same reason. Since then, he has been on dialysis.
Although his previous employer helped him to change job roles within the company, from a manual machine repair role to quality testing, he was eventually let go when his treatment took a toll on his work performance.
He tired easily and could not perform on a par with colleagues, as he had to leave work early for dialysis or medical appointments.
