No need to wait for 6.5 million population

SINGAPORE: The current high occupancy rate at some public hospital is stressing doctors to discharge their patients, admitted Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan yesterday. Occupancy has hit highs of more than 90 per cent for some hospitals recently, above Mr Khaw’s ideal of 85 per cent. “When you run at over 90 per cent, it’s very stressful,” said the Health Minister, who was the chief executive of several hospitals from 1985 to 1992. “Stressful in the sense that, every day, our doctors have to go down to beg the patients (to be discharged).” Occupying a hospital bed for acute illness costs the Government an average of $1,000 a day, compared to “a few hundred dollars” for a community hospital bed. This is “the cost to society”, said Mr Khaw at the sidelines of an event yesterday. “If I don’t actively shift patients down, our total cost will just be heavy.” Reported in Today We are now starting to get a little dosage of what life would be like when we double our population. We will simply break at the seams if we continue to push to the limits.

unsw - money is the end all

UNSW Too hasty a decision University's governing body had 30 seconds to decide on Singapore. Sydney Morning Herald. May 26, 2006 By Harriet Alexander The University of NSW rushed through plans for its now collapsed Singapore campus so quickly that the university's governing body was given just 30 seconds to scrutinise the proposal, a senior academic says. One former member of the governing body said he was so disgusted by the decision in early 2004 that he decided not to stand again for his position on the University of NSW council. Yesterday the university announced it was abandoning the university's Asia operation in Singapore after losing millions of dollars on the venture. Fewer than 150 students had enrolled in the offshore campus this year, far short of plans to have it expand to 15,000 students over the next two decades. It is the latest hitch in the Australian university sector's troubled attempts to exploit the lucrative international student market by setting up offshore campuses. I extracted the above bits from littlespeck.com. This is what will happen when the original objective of education is hijacked into a money making enterprise. It is now all about money. The noble objective of education, the responsibility of educating and training a productive population is discarded and forgotten. Now it is whether there is money to be made. If not, simply close it down, cut your losses, and look for another more lucrative business. Is there anything to learn from this?

legal profession going cuckoo?

Recently we have been hearing very strange things coming from the legal fraternity. Some said making a lot of money is not important. They were talking about service to the people, and making money is not the end all of becoming lawyers. Now the Chief Justice Chan Sek Keong said, 'Ethics is what matters most.' When has ethics been an issue among our learned friends? The profession has always been in the thick of things, at the forefront of all important events in the island, and with many distinguished members becoming leaders of the nation. They are the cream of the society, earning big bucks and delivering justice for the wronged citizens. The Chief Justice was giving a lecture on ethics which is normally taught in primary schools to children. We should expect adults and professionals to live ethics as their second nature. The Chief Justice was talking about setting high morals and building trusts with clients. But more surprising is that he was telling them that making money is secondary to leading a straight and narrow path. What is happening or what has happened for the Chief Justice to have to lecture them on ethics and morals? Is the message to the young lawyers a reminder that our society has gone to the dogs and that they should not follow the same slippery path, of just grabbing money at all cost, without a care to their conscience or propriety?

would jbj's new party make a difference?

Would a new party make a difference to the political landscape of Singapore and alter the present political system? In the last election we have seen some life coming into the political tussling for power and the ruling of the country. Everything has quiet down for the moment. JBJ's new quest may be just another yawn. Our political system has reached a mature state in its own way, not that of a western democracy model. It is a different model that has attained a level where it can only stagnate and not getting better. It has been institutionalised as a parallel to the civil service, an employment opportunity for people to build a life long career with all the perks of employment. And it has developed around it a network of systems and controls to ensure its existence for a long time to come, not to be challenged. The system is not just the political party in power. It seeps down to many levels of the govt service, to the industries, GLCs and not GLCs, and an extended linkage of people groomed and associated with the power of the day. Such an extensive network of people working as one, may not be necessarily bad as has been proven over the years. But the possibility of it turning bad is starting to show when over concentration of power leads to a kind inbreeding mindset or mentality. The group think is getting very transparent, that they share the same thinking, the same aspiration, the same value system, the same self gratification as the motivation and reason to protect and perpetuate the existing system. There is no way for new parties to make any inroad into the political fray and challenge the supremacy of the ruling party under the present conditions. At the worst the opposition parties may gain a handful of seats in the next election. We need to have a paradigm shift as they called it, for all Singaporeans to start thinking about what kind of society and political system they want. Not the present kind where serving the group in power is the end all of life. Many just serve the group, defending the group and behave like the group, unthinkingly. Change will only come when everyone, including all those in govt services, start to think for the country and people, that their loyalty is to the country and people and their general good. And when they start to question what they are doing and for whose interests and for whose goods begin to trouble their conscience, of rights and wrongs, and that it is not really right to serve the paymaster at all cost, with no qualms of the longer term good of the country, only then things will change. When the people are free, at all levels, to think freely, act freely, unfettered by power or self interests and self preservation, then only will there be a change in the political framework and a change in the political system. More parties and more new parties will just be laid on the roadside, as another new sideshow.

UNSW students fight on

The students are fighting back. That is the spirit needed when the big boys washed their hands and packed up to go. The UNSW students met to demand that UNSW honours its commitment to them and keep the campus running, at least till they complete their courses. There is a contract, a social and business obligation once they admitted the students to a degree course. And they cannot walk away and offer whatever half bake measures and expecting the students to accept them. The legal route is an option. Where is the professionalism, the integrity, the honour and responsibility to see through a commitment? An university is always highly regarded by the people as an icon of all the virtues of human endeavours. How could UNSW possibly get away with the fiasco by a shock pullout like this and think that its reputation will not be affected? I do not know how much is our side's involvement and responsibility to the mess. But we cannot get away without some shit sticking to us. We will also smell as bad as UNSW. We may say and think that we are going ahead full steam to achieve our goal as an education hub. But will future students and their parents buy it after what had happened? To think that we have nothing to do with it and that our gleaming reputation is untarnished is like putting blinkers on.