There two catchphrases will be in everyone’s lips in private conversations for a while. Susan Lim, Singapore’ top notch surgeon, has been found guilty of violating this thing called ethical obligation. In simple terms, she cannot overcharge her patients even if her patient is willing to pay what she asked for and agreed in writings. In other words, a contract is tak pakai if someone in a committee said it breaches ethical obligation. In other words, the community of professionals would set an ethical limit as to how much is fair to charge a patient or can be charged to a patient.
Some professions are feeling uneasy with this ethical thing and are coming out to defend themselves, that they have their own guidelines or ethics not to breach this ethical limit. So they would be ethical enough not to be unethical in overcharging their customers or clients. Heheheh…. On the other hand, what these professionals think may be ethical, but to the party that is paying, it can be damn unethical from their pockets. No? Who is the right person to say something is ethical or unethical? Who is the best person to say the ethical limit has been raped?
Many people are looking at the minister’s pay and wondering, just wondering. If the people think that the minister’s pay is unethically high, does it matter at all? Or would the peers of the ministers, ie, ministers in the same profession across the world, think so, does it matter? Or because the ministers are the only people in the profession in the country, so there is no peer pressure to think otherwise, so no one is fit to talk about what is the ethical limit?
The ethical limit is violated beyond recognition in the US and Europe. The CEOs there are robbing the corporations and their shareholders in hundreds of millions or billions, and no one is asking whether it is ethical or unethical. Our local CEOs don’t do such things. They are all very ethical.
Is this ruling by the Court of Appeal enforceable or recognized in other judiciary systems? Or is this ruling applicable to all professions within the City, including political appointments?
I think many people will have a good time discussing these two catchphrases among themselves and going to be thoroughly enjoying every moment of it.
13 comments:
Sure you can argue that "ethics" is a personal thing, and in most areas of life -- governed by each of our "free wills" -- it is. Every decision to act is guided by our own sense of "morality".
However, if you speak of PROFESSIONAL life, then chances are "ethics" is a matter of the governing, in this case the licensing body, of the medical profession. In other words, once you voluntarily join the profession, you are "obliged" to conduct yourself within the limits laid down by the governing/ licensing body.
So the court of appeals has no choice but to side with the stat board in this case. Susan is, so to speak, bound by "contract" to conduct her professional self in certain ways.
P.S. I agree that various professions should be governed/ self-regulated by organising from their community.
However in matters of medicine and law, the agency handing out the licenses is the state. So the state has the ultimate say in the "yay" or "nay" of individual decisions.
In Singapore, the rule of law is the rule BY law.
Medical professionals swear to Hypocratic Oath oredi when taking up their practices.
No ?
Ethical obligation will always b controversial but i support the courts decision else these med practisioners will sukasuka charge the patients ...when they say do tis do tat eat tis eat tat pay tis pay tat who dare say no ..
I also suggest need to look into many others like bank charges , legal fees , developers pricing , moneylenders charges (heard 20- 40% pm wonder true?) ,n how hospitals get debt collectors chase patients bill, pub cut off poor peoples electricity etc ...
Redbean barking up the wrong tree. If it was an FT doctor in Singapore charging atrocious sums on a Sinkie patient, I'm sure we'll be reading something different from him.
RB, I don't think it applies to our politicians lar as they gave a 40% discount some more so how can they breach the ethical limit. If they get piss off and withdraw the discount then u know u kena screw already. Better leave them alone hor. Got discount some more u wanted to complain?
Our politicians paid ZERO tax while CEOs in US/Europe paid 30-70% tax to their countries. Our politicians have many other perks (such as expensive parties/angpows from businessmen) that they will not tell you just in case you read the wrong thing.
Here in asia, the tax setup favors the towkays type (being taxed on net income) rather than the CEOs type (being taxed on gross income). Thats the reason there are more towkays than CEOs.
We may think that the minister's salary is unethically high, but what matters is whether the minister's think so if they do not believe in being ethical.
Is there morality or ethics in the concept of greed? I think no one wishing for more and more have that. It becomes even more irrelevant to talk about ethics if that someone is in a position to pay himself without accountability.
Whether ethical or not, depends on how much power (and thus wealth) you have. For very powerful people, everything they do is ethical. This world is full of bullshits.
When politicians pay themselves at levels which other politicians in the world dare not, I must think that the ethical limit (whatever
that means) has been breached. Whatever the profession, peers know best.
THEY SAY, ONLY THOSE MONEY THAT YOU SPENT IS YR MONEY.
In the 1960s, Goh Keng Swee cut the salaries of ministers to show solidarity with the citizens . What a difference between that man n the current crop of greedy pigs
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