Scoring hospitals

Lee Soh Hong, an accountant, started a website to monitor performances of public hospitals by feedbacks from the public. If this is taken positively without fear or feeling under scrutiny, it could go a long way. No one likes to be publicly scrutinised or have a complaint box ready to receive complaints about them. But this will be the trend as customers wise up to their rights and demands better service for the money they are paying. I was at the NUH for a couple of occasions recently and have made some observations. We have very good medical and support staff manning the institutions, especially the doctors and nurses. We have the best and most modern equipment available. But they are not perfect, especially the software. I feel that they need to have someone full time to look at the software aspects, on how to take good care of customers and their needs, not just medical alone. The quality of the medical care is a given. It is the small nitty gritties that are still found wanting. I did mentioned in the previous post about the PA system. Maybe it was because of some restructuring and relocation due to the H1N1 crisis. Even then a little thought will have make things easier and friendlier to the customers. When I raised this to the staff who was trying his best to help, he told me to write in. This amazed me. Why my on the spot feedback was not enough for him to raise it internally? Why is it that feedback must be written officially for it to be acted on? The other part that I want to repeat is the appointment time and when the patients will eventually be seen by the doctors. After 30 or 40 years, we are still seeing patients having appointments at 9am and seen at 10 or 12 noon. The wait is unnecessarily long. Perhaps there are good medical reasons to do so. To a patient, going to the hospital early and having to wait and wait is bad. In my recent encounter I find that if the staff were to put more urgency or priorities in clearing the patients and let them off over some routine paper works, it would surely help. Spending 5 or 6 hours waiting for a treatment which often ended with 10 or 20 min with the doctors is very difficult to justify. Attempts should be made to cut down this waiting time as many people's time are wasted unnecessarily. My comments are from someone looking from the outside. There must be good reasons to drag the procedure for hours. If not, then the long waiting time is unacceptable.

The new sandwich

While we are seeing the fading away of the old sandwich class, it is surprising to see the emergence of a new sandwich class. Is this new sandwich necessary? The old sandwich came from a period of adject poverty, when educational level was low and many were caught in the low income trap, from parents to children. The short job cycle and the formula of retiring at 55, which was necessary in many hard labour jobs, resulted in many with little savings. The children would have to continue to provide for the old folks and their own children. Today, has the picture changed? Many with families are likely to own a flat, have some CPF savings and with children that are having bigger income. Relatively the people today are much well off except for the dysfunctional families, the remnants of the illiterate and ignorant generations and the squanderers. The problem is or should not be pervasive. Why the need to legislate laws today to create another sandwich class by compulsion? What went wrong? One possibility is the breakdown of the family and family values. The children do not see it their responsibility to look after their aged parents. Of course this is only a generalisation and may not affect too many. Then there is this ‘heart willing, pocket not willing’ situation when the cost of living has made caring and looking after a small family that much more costly financially. And to pay for and look after children and parents simultaneously is not an easy option for many. Law or no law, if the pocket is empty, there is not much that can be done. Isn’t it an irony that in today’s context, with so many levels of protection and provision, the oldies should be happily retired without having to be a burden to children and society. What causes this failure to see our olds retiring to the sunset amply provided? Or retiring to the sunset is a fleeting dream? How many will turn into sour sandwiches, unable to look after their own families and legally bounded to look after their parents? I think if this is becoming such a problem, we have failed as a society to give the people a better life. Too much money and resources are wasted in maintaining a costly lifestyle and with little left to look after parents. Can we then blame the new sandwiches for failing to be filial or were they the victims of circumstances that were promoted as the good life?

Euphoria lost even before LKY is back

I read some of the comments in the ST about the responses and reactions of Malaysian politicians on the LKY visit. Khairy, Anwar and former minister Idris Haron and Johore MP Shahrir Samad were quoted and all were very negative. Even Najib's proposal of a third bridge was attacked as a useless idea. And Khairy stood firm in not selling sand to Singapore. Oh, according to Shahrir, the third bridge is unnecessary as the two bridges were not fully utilised. How come he did not say the crooked bridge was unnecessary for the same reasons? Anyway, Najib is going to have a hard time if his cabinet or MPs were to stand against him. Luckily the third bridge is not Singapore's idea. And the killing of the idea of selling sand to Singapore is as good as calling everything off. The LKY trip started very promising. Now it may become another wasted effort. No fairy tale ending. Just a fairy tale.

Sorry guys/gals

My apologies for not posting anything today. Was at NUH with the missus. Unfortunately the Singtel Wireless reception was poor and can't get my article out. Will post it this evening. Title is New Sandwich.

No he won't shut up

On the tail end of the LKY tour of Malaysia, Mahathir had to let go his pent up feelings. He left it to the last day, a courtesy, or knowing that LKY did not have time for him? He harped on the perpetual issues of Malays losing out, of selling water cheaply to Singapore and how important Singapore has become. He will never die in peace if he cannot get these issues out of his system. It must be very painful to him. Were his fears real or imagination? Every country will strategise their policies with themselves as the centre of the universe. Is that anything new? As for selling untreated water to Singapore at 3 sen, he did not comment that Singapore sold treated water to Johore at a special price in return. Changing one will have to change the other. And the Iskander project, other than the fears of bumiputras being marginalised in their own country, think deeply, is it possible in today's context? This was possible in the pre independence days of colonialism. Today the bumiputras are in control of the country. There are their own masters. And from the economic point of view, if Malaysia cannot remove the blinkers and think that foreign investors will go there, throw their money in and leave everything to the Malaysians, without leaving any traces of their presence, they can give up their dreams of attractive foreign funds. When foreign investors came, they will bring everything, money and their culture and presence. And they want to make profits out of their investments. And Malaysia would naturally want to benefit from their presence. But Malaysia cannot blame the foreign investors for raising the cost of living, fighting for all the space and services, buying up their properties etc etc. These are part and parcel of the bargain. There will be more Singaporean cars and Singaporeans all over Malaysia if they want to promote tourism. And there will be more jams and ugly Singaporeans. If that is something they did not want to see, then it is better to close the door. Malaysia will now have to reassess its position without the fears and threats of a Mahathir mindset. To move forward and embrace the world, or to remain as a kampong?