4/09/2013

Angry man sells house to finance daughter's medicine study overseas

I just have to repost this letter from TRE here. The anger and sense of betrayal can be felt by every word in the letter. And this father is not alone. To make matters worst, many chao kar doctors from many dunno what universities are practising here and their academic credentials cannot hold a candle to the daughter mentioned in the letter. There are so many good Singapore sons and daughters being forced overseas, with parents having to sell house, pawn whatever, clean up their savings to finance their studies, only to realise that there is a great shortage of doctors and these sons and daughters of Singapore could have been trained to fill up the shortfalls. Instead, any chap palang doctors will do it seems.

Now please read on and feel the frustration of this father who can be anyone of us.

My daughter did fairly well in her ‘A’ level. She got 3As and 1B – B for Physics but scored As for the 2 most important subjects for medicine – Biology and Chemistry.


She applied to NUS and was rejected. Not even an interview. She has always wanted to be a doctor her whole life. Her studies in Biology and Chemistry were top-notched. She is very self-discipline and we never have problems telling her to do her homework or reminding her to study since young. When NUS rejected her, she cried day and night.

As parents, how can we see her cry like that? It really breaks our hearts. We then made a family decision and sold our 5-room flat to support her medicine study overseas. We moved back to my parents – imagine, both of us are now in the 50s and we have to live with my parents who are now close to 80s!

My daughter applied to the overseas universities and guess what, she was accepted by a few: Monash University, University of Western Australia, Imperial College. In the end, we chose University of Western Australia because it’s closer to Singapore and it’s also cheaper to study in Australia than in UK. Still, the tuition fee itself cost me at least A$200K+, not counting room and board. All in, it will be A$300K+. I’m glad to see her happily studying medicine in Australia now.

Reading this article (‘Doctor-to-population ratio improved through massive FT recruitment‘) even angers me further. Why are we taking in foreign doctors when we do not even want to give our own Singaporeans a chance? And to think that I’ve served NS, for what? Why is the government not taking care of our own people first??? The fact that my daughter was accepted by some of these good universities shows that she is absolutely qualified to study medicine. Furthermore, she is really passionate about it. Why is the government depriving her, our very own people, that opportunity? To add further insults, I’ve read here that these foreign doctors actually graduated from some of these dubious third world universities?

This is really a big screw up by our government. Instead of investing to train more Singaporeans to become doctors, we are recruiting more foreign doctors. This is totally unacceptable and I might add, a treacherous act by the government!

I’m actually quite apolitical but this incident of NUS rejecting my daughter to study medicine when other good universities are accepting her, has given me a new perspective. The fact that I have to sell away my house and move back with my parents who are close to 80s really hurts me a lot. At their age, I should be taking care of them and yet, they have to shelter my family! I have one more son, because of his sister’s influence, is more inclined to study biology and medicine. I really don’t know what to do if he decides to also study medicine and NUS rejects him too. I have no more houses to sell. The only left would be by then, I can take out my CPF and use it to finance his overseas study.

I really cursed this government!

One more thing I would like to add – Yes, I’ll be attending the May Day protest!

Angry father

PS. Can PAP survive 2016 when there is a groundswell in frustration and the feeling of betrayal?

51 comments:

Anonymous said...

Being doctors must still be extremely lucrative. Oh forget about the talk of helping the sick. That is all a load of crap when it comes to reality. Having lived for so long, I realise that long ago doctors really do it for altruisic callings. Not today's doctors and the hypocratic oath. That has been thrown out of the windows when money comes into the picture.

Good luck to those who do not think so.

oldhorse42 said...

I go to Bukit Batok Polyclinic for my regular checkups.There are vietnames doctor, also Indian doctor, Korean doctor and burmese doctor. I have seen them all. Indian and Korean doctor, not too bad. Don't kena the burmese or viet doctor. Their favourite 'siam' tactic: refer you to A&E clinic for minor ailment.
Yes, why do we take in half-past six foreign doctor instead of training more of our passionate students to be doctor?

Anonymous said...

Going to the Polyclinics for consultation often means referral to a specialist whom you get to see many months later by which time you'd probably would have gotten much worse. Consultation at the specialist often mean getting referred to a specialist of a different discipline if your question outside his or her discipline. Over specialization or what? I have learnt to visiting the GP saves time and money.

Virgo 49 said...

My mother had two nasty falls when she woke up late at night and was ambulances to SGH A&E.

The pinoy doctor stiched her cuts on eyelids and I brought her to a private clinic for stiches to be removed.

Spent twenty plus and had to go to polyclinic to remove stiches as clinic unable to remove them.

Embedded too deep and they have no surgical equipment to do it.

Sigh

Anonymous said...

Sorry I mean.. I have learnt that visiting the GP saves time and money....before anyone infer that poor English usage means low intellect.

Anonymous said...

Matilah, I can smell the stink in your mouth from far away, you arsehole ! This is a real situation faced by many Singaporean parents and you say such mean words ! You sure do not know how it feels to be played out by your own government. Wait till retribution catch up with you !

Anonymous said...

This is another case of lacking 20/20 foresight. My blood boils hearing of such screwed up manpower planning by our highly paid civil servants. Whats worse is that they are paid out of taxpayers' money, ie your money and my money !

Anonymous said...

Angry father, to be fair there are only so many places and those who got in have six to seven A. The lowest I know from personal experience is my friend's son who has 5A and 1B plus a credit in H3 chemistry.

It's the lack f vision that cause this problem not NUS problem but MOE problem. As for second son, other than advising him to face reality to change course if he does not secure 6A is to either clean up your cpf or sell your parents home and move to rented property or move in with your brothers or sisters if they accept u. In life Bo bian, all actions have consequences.

Anonymous said...

He should also blame himself for voting the G time and again. Problem with the sheeps here is they do not bother to understand their G before voting and when problems hit them, they start to blame on others.
Anyway, her daughter should settle for some mainland eu universities which costs much much less (1/3 of total costs) and able to pick up a foreign language. Why always pick from us, uk and oz? They are overrated and overpriced.

'A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves.'

Anonymous said...

angry father, the same thing happen to my daughter,she could nt get to nus,i have to sell my house,and borrow money to send her study in uni of adelaide.l m still paying the debt.we are treated worst than third class citizen.i m sad but u see foreigners enjoying in spore.on 1stmay i will be at speakers corner with my family.

Anonymous said...

All doctors are fucked up! Once they become doctors, they will forget their oaths to help people. Instead, they help themselves with more money!. Greed, i would say. My son was referred to CGH to see a neuro and the waiting time? Flour months? Ridiculous isnt it? The receptionist told me if i am willing to be a private patient (Which i have to fork out about S$100.00) she can arrange a doctor straightaway!

Anonymous said...

My understanding is 30-40% of the total has been allocated to foreign students (including PRs who are considered non local to me). Many of Singaporeans have got no choice but to send their children abroad for dentistry or medical studies.

On the other hands, we are getting doctors from developing countries such as Sri Landa, Philippines, Eastern Euro, India...etc. Something has terribly gone wrong with our system.

What our leaders have said is all 'political language', and we must not be misled into believing them.

theonion said...

Anon 3.51pm

There is no 30-40% for overseas students for medical faculty for medicine or dentistry.

Only locals are allowed to study except for measly 1% of such places and those are meant to be exceptions.

all the rest are locals as the bonds for such are a heavy burden for those for guarantee them.

Well think for yourself, if they simply increase places and there is more medical incidents, who gets blamed, the gahmen.

in addition, there are many medical schools which will accept full fee paying students which the angry father kid is and with reasonable grades (when graduate and how long depends) , however, she may not qualify if not full fee paying but under local subsidised fees.
To me, it would be more interesting and factual and valid if the kid received a subsidised scholarship to study medicine instead of full fee paying.

Just like some kids can go in certain popular faculties in australia if you are full fee paying

Anonymous said...

Cannot be a doctor then just become a nurse loh. Moreover can marry a doctor and not need to put parents into such undesirable situation. Youngsters are selfish these days, no wonder the G wanna replaced all of you with aliens.

Anonymous said...

If singapore only needs so many doctors and everyone wants to be a doctor, then fine. Off course the school have the right to chose the best.
But if we are short of doctors, needing to employ doctors from overseas, then obviously the school need to open up more classes. And denying singaporeans a place so that some foreigner can study medicine here is definitely wrong. However, it can still be justified if they are paying much more for the school fees so that Singaporean can pay less. But this is not true, in fact a lot of them study for free with a monthly allowance.
This is the kind of twisted and crazy government we have voted in. Where foreigners gets treated better than locals. Singaporeans, when will you wake up and vote wisely?

Anonymous said...

How do you know this Angry Father is a legitimate,not fictional person?

Anonymous said...

Considering the pound is at a low today and that he's beggaring himself anyway, the choice should have been Imperial College.

I am in my 60s. Back then, many of my friends only went to university in their 40s - after they'd saved for it. Quite a number of us in college then worked part-time to help our parents pay for our studies. Are Sporeans today willing to do all this?

While the angry father has my sympathies, and I think too many of this govt's policies suck Big time, we also have to realise we cant always have what we want. Throwing a tantrum is so childish.

However, if such incidents persuade more people to vote against the PAP, that's great!

Anonymous said...

Anonymous said...
How do you know this Angry Father is a legitimate,not fictional person?

In this case, it does not matter whether that father is real. Every detail in the story is something that average Singaporeans can relate to.
- good grades but no sg univ admission
- easily accepted in good Aust, UK univ
- sell flat/big loan to study overseas

And we know of many similar real life stories ourselves.

Anonymous said...

Vote out the Pro Alien Traitors!

Anonymous said...

I'm a little bit confused about who voted "Yes" and "No" in the Population White Paper.
So let me write this down so people can correct me if I am wrong:

There are 87 MPs;
9 NMPs;
and 3 NCMPs in parliament.

NMP who Abstained
-------------------
1.Eugene Tan, NMP

NMP who did not show up for work & vote (Absent)
-----------------------------------------------------------
2.Tan Su Shan, NMP

NMP who voted YES
------------------
3.Nicholas Fang,
4.Mary Liew,
5.Ramy Dhinakaran
6.Teo Siong Seng.

NMP who voted NO
----------------
7.Janice Koh,
8.Faizah Jamal and
9.Laurence Lien

PAP MPs who did not show up for work & vote (Absent)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
10.Dr Chia Shi Lu
11.Lee Kuan Yew
12.Raymond Lim Siang Keat
13.Alvin Yeo

PAP MPs who were in Parliament but were missing-in-action when vote was taken
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
14. Inderjit Singh
15. Indranee Rajah
16. Ne Eng Hen

NCMPs (100% voted NO)
-----------------------------------
17. Gerald Giam
18. Yee Jenn Jong
19. Lina Loh

Workers’ Party elected MPs (all voted NO)
---------------------------------------------
20. Low Thia Khiang
21. Sylvia Lim
22. Chen Show Mao
23. Muhamad Faisal Manap
24. Pritam Singh
25. Png Eng Huat
26. Lee Li Lian

This leaves (99-26=73) remaining MPs (All PAP)
---------------------------------------------------------------
So all the remaining 73 PAP MPs voted “YES”.

Just thought we should know who might be the Traitors, Patriots and Cowards.

REMEMBER THEIR NAMES IN GE 2016.

Anonymous said...

Singaporeans are daft remembered? Just give them a few sweets and the ground will change in GE2016. All the frustrations will turn into favourable votes for the ruling party. This kind of drama has been used over and over again.

'A nation of sheeps will beget a government of wolves'- Edward Murrow

Anonymous said...

Should import more people to gain more votes or prop up the properties?

virgo49 said...

Bro, percentage of beds in higher paying wards reserved for foreigners.

They paying two or three times our price. Some more cash cash with deposit.

LKY and his previous HELL ministers made a blunder by restricting the quota of female students training to be doctors. Now they brought in third world quake doctors from the third world country who cannot even do seizures better than our nurses.

Anonymous said...

It is interesting Singapore now change it stance concentrating on building its local population and SME, Singapore could be the next advanced nation like Israel, the other 2 advanced nations in Asia are Japan and South Korea, which depend on it own technology and innovations, depending on foreigners cheap workers could lowering their standard of living take away jobs and depress pays?

Anonymous said...

Israel without the advantages of Singapore location in one of the busiest part of the world, depend on its people to powered their economic, Israel has many disadvantage, but it turn it into advantage to become one of the most advanced nation, without resources?

If Israel didn't depend of foreign cheap workers or cheap labour foreign investments, why can't Singapore?

Anonymous said...

"If Israel didn't depend of foreign cheap workers or cheap labour foreign investments, why can't Singapore?"

Singapore cannot because Singapore got PAP.
Singapore got shit for brains.

theonion said...

Anon 8.29am

Israel has cheap labour, they are called guest or transient workers and they come from the neighbouring countries.

South Korea has North Korea.

Anonymous said...

10.38 am not true lar that South Korea has North Korea. It's only one industrial park at the border. So don't any how say hor

denk said...

isnt globalisation wonderful ?
the finance, health care , higher institutions are manned by ft
the *national paper*, the *shit times* sounds like the mouth piece of fukus, if u need more proof, barry wain the certified china baiter from war street journal is the head honcho now.

im sure everybody has noticed the deluge of masked faces amongst us, yes, the once dreaded tb is back with a vengence . it has gotten so bad that there'r health posters urging anyone with persistent cough to go for tb screening !
dengue is getting worse despite yrs of fogging with insecticide. the mosquitos seem to be immune to it, im not so sure what these toxic spray do to the humans tho. u wont drop dead over night, its the long term effect thats worrying, i heard cancer cases are up too ?
hand foot mouth decease is popping up all over the island.
even the accursed bed bugs are making a comeback !
sg is raining craps these days...., courtesy pap *ka kui dua dua* policy !

the latest edition of sars, h7n9, is savaging mainland china , hk, tw right now.
wtf, these craps seem to have an affinity towards tunglang
sars first edition also hits mainly china, tw, sg, hk etc.
if any sinkies kena this crap, the days of sars will come back to haunt us again. the masked faces would become an avalanche.
a visit to the clinics or hospitals would turn into a nightmare.
lots of interrogations, screening, tedious procedures, day long wait would become norm of the day. argh !

anybody interested in *conspiracy theory* ?
is there such a thing as *designer virus * ?
ever heard of *advanced forms of biological warfare that can 'target' specific genotypes * ?

Ⓜatilah $ingapura⚠️ said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Ⓜatilah $ingapura⚠️ said...

redbean:

Oh, I'm the "asshole" for calling the guy out? Outrageous!

For fucks sake. Don't you even have the good sense to know when someone is preying on you for unearned sympathy? You don't even know if this anecdote is true, or if there is more behind the ONE SIDED STORY.

redbean, a critical thinker you are NOT!

The guy is a dick, and is IMO a COMPLETE FAILURE as a parent. Fancy subjecting his very own daughter to the cruelty of forever feeling "guilty" that her asshole of a dad publicly declared himself as "father of the century" by "sacrificing" the family home to "educate his daughter". This will probably fuck her up psychologically,I hope she'll get over it.

Oh fucking boo hoo hoo, my rectum is crying.

When his daughter graduates she'll have the potential to make several orders of magnitude more money than the average working stiff. Her stingy father wants the "cheap way out" -- entitlement mentality full steam ahead!

Possible cognitive bias in play: Attribution Bias: When you get your objective, it is through your efforts, intelligence and diligence -- i.e. your AWESOME self. When you don't get your objective it is because of the fault of others, but you, of course are 100% clear of any fault. (Sound familiar?)

This guy is one of the worst examples of a parent I've come across.

Fuck him.

Chua Chin Leng aka redbean said...

The father is just an average Singaporean father lah. You think he thinks so much and cover all angles? He is just venting his frustration just like anyone of us.

Anonymous said...

RB,

Why did he only get angry now? Didn't he realise what had been happening for the past 10 years? Was he blind? Did he let these things happen and only when it hit him personally, that he acted?

This is how Singaporeans are. Selfish and concerned only about their own immediate welfare. Never mindful of the bigger picture and making their social circle aware of the threats.

Singaporean have themselves to blame.

- Gecko.

Ⓜatilah $ingapura⚠️ said...

3 cheers for Gecko!

redbean:

>> The father is just an average Singaporean father lah.

What the fuck does that even mean? Where is the "official definition" of "an average Singaporean father"...or are you just making up "concepts" anyhow gasak buta?

>> You think he thinks so much and cover all angles?

I actually don't give a shit about what he thinks. His brain is his own business.

>> He is just venting his frustration just like anyone of us.

And you know this, HOW, exactly? Where is your hard evidence?

Chua Chin Leng aka redbean said...

Hi Gecko, welcome to the blog. Just ignore Matilah's wild screaming, he doesn't care about this fellow but very unhappy about what he said. He wants hard evidence, go to the high court lah?

Human beans are naturally selfish, that we have to accept. Many people took knocks, swallowed them and kept quiet. Sometimes it would take something to knock them off balance or out of their stupor. In this case it was the statistics about shortage of doctors and the recruiting of all kinds chap palan doctors to fill the public hospitals that really pissed this father off.

It is like getting up on the wrong side of the bed and he just blew his top. Matilah blew his top and bottom every minute.

Anonymous said...

'recruiting of all kinds chap palan doctors'

so you are blaming the gov again? not the daft people who keep on voting for the same gov? not the people who went overseas after completing their local medical degree? at least the gov tried to get some doctors else we all have to go and flood jb hospitals for goodness sake.

Anonymous said...

I though its common sense you need straight As to get in NUS medicine? what is he complaining about? His daughter did not do well enough so he had to sell his house? Better keep family issues inside the family loh. If he really cares about his parents, he should let her daughter to deal with reality. But clearly he put his children in front of his parents. I just found this piece very funny.

Chua Chin Leng aka redbean said...

The father is angry as there are many good local students that could be turned into good doctors but we ended up bringing in dunno what quality doctors from the third world whose credentials and quality are either doubtful, some fakes, or not even as good as our local reject students.

And to think that the country needs so many doctors at least more of our good local students could be made into doctors with a little more places or some govt support like subsidies for overseas tuition fees. Oops, I think they are starting to do this but dunno how effective.

Anonymous said...

3As and 1B are not good results, especially not for Med School. I believe this is a case of the parents spoiling their children. If the child's results are not good enough to enter, the parent should not blame the government for it but rather manage the expectations of their children and together set a new career path for the child. This Singapore culture of complaining and taking our (educational) opportunities for granted needs to stop. Instead of pointing the finger at how the government are ill-treating you or how other people are receiving better benefits/rewards, we need to look at ourselves first. This "Angry Father" just sounds like a "Spoilt Grown Man" whose children will probably turn out the same way as well.

3As 1B is not going to get you into Medicine School unless you do have other exemplary performances to back it up or explain why your results pale so much in comparison to others. Both the child and the father need to face facts, sometimes the children may underperform than the cut-off. If you are unable to afford a med education, your child should be sensible and responsible enough to adjust her expectations and goals accordingly, not cry and weep about her own failures.

Get up and move on! That should be the lesson your daughter learns from this rejection, not to blame her own failures on others.

Anonymous said...

All the crème ala creme applied for medical, for a very limited places each year, what do you expect? 3As and 1B is good, but in medical it may not be that good when compared with others. What about her GP and CCA ? When they graduate they will earn more money than you can imagine and charge you more if they go private, whilst when they study, it is heavily subsidized by our tax dollars. She being a woman, how many actually carry and stay on to be a doctor? What if the property market had tanked instead of up, would he be so sore now?
One only sees part of the picture in this predicament.

Sentosa

Chua Chin Leng aka redbean said...

Hi Sentosa, welcome to the blog.

The sore point is that we need so many doctors but not willing to train more from our bright students but took craps from overseas.

Anonymous said...

I think they are aware of the problem and if I am not mistaken they are already taking more med students. It cost a lot to train each med student so I guess there must be a limit somewhere, else people just join med and then drop off for whatever reason, who is going to foot the bill? It is just unfortunate that the man's daughter's results+ GP CCA etc probably may not be good enough but then it is still good results she can study be a lawyer or banker etc. To insist on studying med and going overseas spending a bomb and then blame others, is just plain fool hardy.

Sentosa

Anonymous said...

Sentosa, it's called passion.

Chua Chin Leng aka redbean said...

What can be done is to modify the govt's offer to bring back overseas trained Singaporeans in medical schools by subsidising their tuition fees. Work out on the numbers, fill up as many places possible/available in local unis, the balance work out some subsidy schemes, not necessary a full scholarship as that would affect the good local students here.

Dunno why it is so difficult to do the sums and train as many of our locals, locally and overseas, instead of bringing in sub standards to be paid like our quality doctors, and worst, many of our good locals missed out the opportunity totally.

Anonymous said...

Lol. Let this be a pity fest for all you peasants who dont work hard enough and want to whine to the world. Grow some spine guys. Stop being a bunch of pussies. The world is an unfair place. Stop blaming everyone and everything

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Anonymous said...

Firstly, one do not need perfect scores to be shortlisted for the interviews; just the perfect UAS (University Admission Scores) computed from 3H2s (3x20), 1H1 (1x10), GP (1x10), PW (1x10).

Given the right combination, 3As and 1B may give you a perfect UAS score of 90. What "angry father" did not provide is what are his daughter grade for PW and GP; these 2 subject alone may bring down her UAS.

Secondly, one need to recognise that every year only about 300 are selected from the 1,000 odd students shortlisted for the interviews; this year slightly more with NTU taking in students. The admission is very, very competitive.

Thirdly, as parents, if we want to let our children pursue their passion (whatever that may be), then we must be willing to make that sacrifice with bitching about it. The government nor NUS is not obliged to provide a place for our child to do whatever they like.