TR EMERITUS

To the PAP, an election is not a process to choose the next government, but an impediment and a nuisance to them forming the next government. To them, it’s a forgone conclusion, they are the next government, only question is whether they have to deal with one, two or three so-called opposition members or twenty of them, in which case they will have to spend a lot of time “fixing them” instead of crafting policies. After all, when was the last time the PAP wasn’t the government? Yes, there will be pandemonium within the PAP if they lose another GRC, but that’s because they are a “kiasu” party; losing one layer of defence is not acceptable even though there’s buffer as thick as the blubber of a North Pole seal. Voters in the Pioneer and Merdeka generations, who rode the wave from third world to first world, are fixed deposits. Likewise, the hundreds of thousands of new citizens. The same can be said with those who work in GLCs which arguably control more than half the economy as well as the many associates who have benefited from the PAP’s brand of state capitalism. Thus they are the government not because the people elected them, although they did go through the process, but they are the government because it is a done deal, which they have carefully plotted and planned. And because their leaders are the cream of our meritocratic system and are thus gifted elites and their hearts are in the right places, we should not question them. There is really no need for accountability, they have our best interest at heart and they know best. Such an ideology would have been acceptable during the days of LKY, GKS, TCC, Rajaratnam, HSS and LKS. Even though they did ride roughshods over many who disagreed with them, they nonetheless knew best and had the welfare of the people at heart. But the same cannot be said of the current PAP, even though they think they are the elites and have the country’s best interest at heart. Look at the Mas Selamat incident. For heaven’s sake, he escaped through a small toilet window in a maximum security prison, limped all the way to the Johor Straits and swam across to Malaysia while the whole police force and guard dog unit were hot on his trail. And yet, for such a gross failure and embarrassment, only the junior officers in the ministry were taken to task, while the minister is not “culpable of blame”. Where is the accountability, you may ask. Well, you see, how can you blame the minister? His heart is in the right place, he is one of the brightest man in the country and it’s not his job to guard the toilet, even though he in the minister in charge. You see, my friends, the PAP’s notion of accountability and our notion of accountability is very different. We think that because we elected them, they have a duty to be transparent and upfront with us, but to them, so long as they have the country’s best interests at heart, they have been accountable, and it’s best to leave the very important job of running the country to them since they are the gifted elites, while we should busy ourselves toiling at our jobs, go shopping, watch some silly TV programs and take an overseas holiday if we have the money. Then Covid-19 exposed that they don’t know best after all, I mean, see how we were left stranded when Malaysia had to lock down on March 18? We had to spend millions of dollars to literally beg the Malaysian workers to stay here and keep the economy running. Then CCS said we don’t need to wear mask, cos he took a gamble with the limited stock but only to do a complete u-turn a few weeks later, which by then god knows how many would have been infected by that gamble. Maybe he should gamble at Genting and not with our lives. And then, not to be forgotten, they made foreign workers stay in dorms which are mostly run by their associates, and despite many lapses of the law, did nothing much, and lo and behold, Covid-19 infections erupted like a runaway forest fire, and the CB has to be prolonged, causing the economy to lose hundreds of millions of dollars everyday. Well, I guess I should stop. Thanks for reading my rant, if you have reached this far. But I guess the point I am trying to make is that 4G PAP is not the same as the 1G PAP and should not expect the kind of blind faith that our forefathers accorded the 1G leaders, but must show accountability and transparency, after all they have shown that they are not gifted elites who know best but are mere mortals.   Foong Swee Fong      Read More →

UPDATE: Persistent gaps in communication and medical care for quarantined migrant workers 1) Workers in dorms and community recovery facilities continue to face difficulty in getting access to crucial medication/medical care for new and chronic issues, including in emergencies such as blood pressure spikes. Accounts include workers being told by dorm security that they are not allowed to go outside to get medication, while not being provided with alternative avenues to get the medication they need. One worker had been asking for BP medication for three weeks, at three different facilities he had been moved to, before we finally managed to contact someone who could get him the attention he needed. 2) My concern is that the current channels workers have access to for help are highly insufficient. From my experience/understanding, how it works now is that workers' main point of contact for information/support/etc remain dorm management/security. Workers don't have direct access to FAST teams. In the case that dorm management or security is unsupportive, workers who are connected to activists or NGOs contact them and share their problems, which are then forwarded to MWC, who in turn contact the FAST teams for assistance. This is a very roundabout way of getting help, and it isn't always effective because it's like a game of Chinese whispers. The parties involved don't always have all the information, and sometimes it gets overlooked or regarded as unimportant. One of the workers we were in contact with, who couldn't get medication in time, experienced profuse sweating and needed to get to a hospital asap. Even after we managed to contact the FAST team, they didn't show and the worker turned to an online doctor. He did eventually get to a hospital after some volunteers rallied around trying to get help and advocating on his behalf to those in charge, but there was a significant lag. He is now in the ICU. If he had had his BP medication in time, would this have happened? I worry most about workers who aren't connected to any NGO networks, and what happens when they get ill and are denied care by those responsible. Workers are not just at risk of contracting Covid, but also to not having their other health issues addressed in a timely manner. Many workers haven't heard of a FAST team. Some don't even know who is managing their dorms at the moment, and they feel helpless when they have a problem. 3) There are workers who have been moved from room to room, level to level, in their dorms, without explanations as to why this is happening. Some of the workers surmised that it might be due to cleaning activities that are being undertaken level by level, but they have not been provided any explanation from dorm management for these actions. They also don't know when they will next be moved. Workers say the lack of information, and uncertainty around when they will be moved, is demoralising. They ask why no one bothers to explain things to them. 4) There are also accounts of how, when workers are removed from a room to be quarantined/hospitalised, their roommates expect that the rest of them will have more space to practice distancing in the room, but other workers were moved in. No explanations were provided, and these are workers they do not know, from other companies. Again, workers speculate whether this is so that some rooms can be turned into isolation areas, and they just wish someone would tell them what's going on. Living in such precarity is stressful enough without these unpredictable changes happening regularly without explanation. 5) Some workers report how there are numerous empty rooms in their dorm as a result of some employers relocating their workers early on, and wonder why they aren't allowed to take advantage of that and space out. If there are reasons for this, they just want an opportunity to understand. 6) Some doctors have shared how it is not practical to use the translation portals that volunteers have set up within the dorms. These websites are helpful in the hospital setting, where they have more time to interact with their patients, but in the dorms, medical teams are only around for a couple of hours in the morning and evening, and the set-up (medical posts are in places like the dorm canteen), PPE and rushed circumstances means they have to rely on simple English, and have encounters where workers aren't able to tell them what they're experiencing and they're not able to reassure them/provide guidance either. 7) There are no translators in hospitals or dorms, to my knowledge. 8) Doctors have also reported, including in some media articles, that they meet many workers at the hospital who are in a panic because no one has told them what is happening, and why they are there. When workers are moved out of their dorms, they are frequently not informed why, or where they are going. 9) It is also unclear to workers what symptoms/conditions will qualify them to be taken to hospital. For example, some workers above 50 have been moved out of dorms so doctors can keep a closer eye on them in healthcare settings, but the workers are confused about whether they have tested positive for Covid-19 and that's why they've been moved out. Others who have high fever think they will be taken to the hospital, but this isn't the protocol. But since no one has communicated the protocol to them, they worry because they think they have been forgotten/they aren't getting the care they need. 10) This has already been widely reported, and I mentioned it in a previous update too, but workers are, still, often not informed of their Covid-19 test results, which is utterly unacceptable and leads to a lot of anxiety. There has been a lot of concern and discussion about workers' mental health in this period, and rightfully so. A significant amount of anxiety, panic, stress and despair can be addressed through ensuring that workers have access to information and medical care, and are able to communicate their problems/feedback properly and get assistance where needed. Being asked to pack up and move immediately without knowing why, or being herded into a van without being told where you're going, or waking up to new roommates, or waiting around after a Covid test only to never hear back - these are sure to make workers feel demoralised, anxious and utterly disempowered. And being turned away when you're experiencing distressing physical symptoms and need medication urgently is unconscionable. It's hard not to wonder if any of the deaths so far that were not attributed to Covid-19, could have been caused by a delay in a worker getting the medical care he needed for a chronic condition. The above information is to the best of my knowledge, and verified to the best of my ability. As always, I will make corrections if anyone alerts me to any inaccuracies, and I will post such corrections as updates, so there is clarity around the error(s).   * Facebook post by Kokila Annamalai.      Read More →

Dr. X – Surgeon Michiko Daimon My latest guilty pleasure during this circuit breaker is a Japanese TV series on Netflix called “Dr. X – Surgeon Michiko Daimon.” Apart from the obvious charms of Ryoko Yonekura, the actress who plays the titular character, the thing that makes the show so enjoyable is a main issue for anyone living in an Asian Society, particularly if you’re the type of person who doesn’t accept things as they are. Dr. Michiko Daimon is a freelance surgeon in a university hospital in central Tokyo. The show underlines the fact that she’s a lone wolf surgeon who “Hates Crowds” and “Hates Authority.” These characteristics clash very visibly with the culture of the hospital, which is deferential to authority and there is plenty of group think. She only gets away with her antics because she’s a brilliant surgeon who manages to do the things that no one else does. The entire story was something relatable, especially after more than a decade as a freelance consultant in Asia, which is a part of the world that doesn’t have a culture that looks too kindly on people who stand out too obviously. Confucius, the founding philosopher of Chinese and by extension Japanese and Korean cultures, believed that everyone had a place in life and there was a great reverence for established authority, which in turn had an obligation to “look after” the people below. While I do admire people, who can put the community above themselves, there are dangers in this approach. The most obvious point is that the people who achieve great power aren’t always the most honourable and righteous. Even if a person starts out with the purest of intentions, a long spell in power often have a way of corrupting the best and brightest. As ethnic Chinese, I think of Mao, who lead the liberation of peasants against corrupt warlords and then ended up becoming nastier than the people he replaced. His contemporary in Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh by contrast had good fortune to die before he could go nuts. The next point with linear or top down systems is that people in them tend to lose focus. The problem in such systems is that the only way of moving in life is either up or down. It goes without saying that if your only way of getting anywhere is based on whether the top man likes you, your focus becomes pleasing the top man. The show illustrates this perfectly. In the hospital where Dr. Daimon works, everyone is terrified of the “Professors,” who are quite often the least able to perform basic surgery. Yet, nobody questions the diagnosis of the professors and they end up doing all sorts of crap to keep on the good side of the professors, including cover up for them when dealing with mistresses. The show inevitably starts with the entire hospital rushing up stairs to greet the director (who takes the lift) to accompany him on his rounds. The most prominent incident comes when a pediatric surgeon refuses to examine a child who is complaining of various pains that occur randomly throughout her body because his boss, the Professor of Pediatrics, performed the surgery and he won’t do anything that makes his boss look bad. While a certain amount of deference to established authority is warranted, an obsession with looking up and down is unhealthy. The problem that the hospital faces is the doctors are more focused on keeping their professors happy and the professors are only interested in their research papers. The needs of patients are ignored and this is where Dr. Daimon comes in. She’s terrible at fitting in but she acts in the best interest of patients giving them medical advice they need rather than what they want. In one episode she antagonizes a celebrity cook because she refuses to admire her cooking (which is awful). However, she is the one who rescues the celebrity who has cancer and needs surgery. She goes as far as to perform the surgery with a consent form because it is a life and death situation and that is more important than the prospect of being sued. In hierarchical systems, the reality of becoming too obsessed with climbing the ladder and our boss’s opinion of us that we forget that the people keeping the business running are the customers. I think of my “career” path. Couldn’t make it in PR agency. Either rubbed bosses or colleagues the wrong way. Yet, as a freelancer I actually did jobs that most people would say I had no right to do as a lone individual (think Saudi Embassy, IIM and IIT). The next point is that you got to do the work and be prepared to cast your net ass widely as possible to get information. In the first series, Dr. Diamon chats with a patient who worked in the rubber industry. From there, she realizes that the patient has allergy to latex and she quickly orders non latex gloves before the surgery. So, when she has to step in to perform the surgery, she’s able to ensure that everyone else has gloves that won’t cause the patient to have an allergic reaction. Lesson here is to be open to things and knowledge doesn’t necessarily comes from where you expect it. As my favourite liquidator says when looking for financial shenanigans, don’t just look at financial records – simple emails can also give you plenty of information. Dr. Diamon is also the only doctor in the hospital to check x-rays and when she questions her superiors, she’s doing so from a point of knowledge rather than taking things in on a wholesale basis. To get knowledge, you have to actually look for it. Next point is that Dr. Diamon is good at getting people onto her side. In one instance, she concedes defeat and gets another doctor to take charge and look good. This is a doctor who refused to work with her until forced to because he didn’t trust her. It’s only as he’s been operating that he realizes that he’s doing what she wants him to do and gives her respect when she allows him to be the hero. Her main point is that she knew she couldn’t achieve the mission without his help and so is willing to give away credit This leads to the next point, which is, although Dr. Diamon does not make “friends,” she has them. There is her “agent” Akira, who handles the money. While Dr. Diamon is a brilliant surgeon, she’s terrible with money and her agent ensures that she gets well compensated for her work. Moral of the story – work with people who will cover for your weaknesses. Many years ago, I remember the Bishop of Lewes, who was our guest at “Speech Day” urged us to become “eccentric.” I remember this because this wasn’t something that you’d expect a guest at a public-school speech day to mention, especially when that guest was a monk. I never quite appreciated this until I started watching Dr. X. One should not be afraid of being a little unusual. It helps shield one from the dangers of group think and when you’re not afraid to stand out from time to time, you get the chance of focusing on the things that you actually need to focus on rather than on the things that people would like you to be distracted by.   Tang Li *Although I’ve been based mainly in Singapore for nearly two decades, I’ve had the privilege of being able meet people who have crossed borders and cultures. I’ve befriended ministers and ambassadors and worked on projects involving a former head of state. Yet, at the same time, I’ve had the privilege of befriending migrant labourers and former convicts. All of them have a story to tell. All of them add to the fabric of life. I hope to express the stories that inspire us to create life as it should be.      Read More →