TR EMERITUS

Written by Our Correspondent It seems that even the usually well protected medical profession is not spared the onslaught of foreigners these days. According to Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan, two in three newly registered doctors are "foreign-trained". Early last year, the Ministry of Health (MOH) announced that it will be recruiting as many as 1,000 foreign-trained doctors into the public healthcare sector to ease Singapore's doctor "shortage". Many of these foreign doctors are sent to work in hospital specialties shunned by Singapore doctors such as Geriatrics, General Medicine, Renal Medicine as well as medical officers in polyclinics. Foreign doctors now make up about 40 - 50 per cent of the doctors in Singapore polyclinics. While the Malaysian doctors encounter no difficulties in communicating with local patients, the Indian and Filipino doctors will have to depend on translators when they see non-English speaking patients, in particular the elderly. A key reason for the shortage of doctors in the public sector is the low pay and long working hours. As all NUS medical graduates are "bonded" with MOH, they are paid at well below market rates in the public healthcare sector. Unless one chooses to take up specialist training, most will eventually leave to set up their own GP practices in the private sector where it is more lucrative. Their places will have to be taken over by foreign-trained doctors which cost much less than a Singapore doctor. The monthly pay of a final year medical officer is about $5,000. On the other hand, a first year NTS (non-traditional source) medical officer commands only between $2,500 - $3,000. As public healthcare is heavily subsidized by MOH, it is understandable that it has to keep manpower costs down to avoid passing them to patients. The trade-off for having more foreign doctors in the public sector is that there may be a compromise in the quality of medical care which is exacerbated by the heavy work load, language problems and different training. Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan told Parliament yesterday that "with more and more foreign-trained doctors working in Singapore, there is a need to monitor their performance and ensure they are up to Singapore's standards and are adapting well locally." The rising demand for doctors has been spurred by the growing population contributed largely by the relentless influx of foreigners in Singapore. Despite the shortage of doctors in Singapore, the number of places in NUS's coveted medical school has not increased by much and remains at around 250, an increase of only 50 compared to a decade ago.  Every year, there will be some Singapore students who have to study medicine overseas as they are unable to get a place in NUS. We will not be so dependent on foreign doctors had NUS increased its intake of medical students. With more than 50 per cent of doctors practising in Singapore being trained overseas, MOH will introduce measures to arm the Singapore Medical Council (SMC) more powers to limit the practice and conduct of new doctors entering the healthcare system. Such a move will not be necessary if MOH had paid more attention to the welfare of junior doctors to convince them they will have a career, a future and most importantly, a life by staying put to serve fellow Singaporeans in the public healthcare sector.   EDITORS' NOTE: Please join our Facebook here. In the event our site is down again for whatever reasons in the future, we will inform readers on our Facebook.  Read More →

By Hurr Riyahi The recent arson attacks on churches in Malaysia has triggered tongues from all quarters to go on a convenient fingering exercise.. Singaporeans pointing at Malaysians and talking about how intolerant they are. Christians pointing at Muslims. Chinese pointing at Malays. etc etc. It is always convenient and easy to point at others and difficult to reflect about oneself. In all the years I lived in Singapore and Malaysia, I have found that both societies are pretty much the same in many ways no matter how much they may deny. In one aspect where they are similiar is the prevalence of intolerance and of course the attitude of denial about it. In both countries one can find numerous cases of issues involving places of worship being handled with absolutely little sensitivity or tolerance. In Malaysia for instance there is indeed a problem of Hindus having built several temples without any licenses and in fact that is also a problem in India. However when dealing with the problem, seldom do you see both sides (i.e. authorities and temple worshippers) showing any sense of give and take. The authorities' perspective is all about illegal occupation of land and totally disregard the sacredness of the space to Hindus. The Hindu worshippers on the other hand totally disregard the need to respect the laws governing land rights. Instead of both sides compromising, they prefer to go for confrontation. This is not limited to Hindu temples alone. Mosques also face the same similar dilemma. Authorities in states like Johor, Perak etc have tried to change names of Indian Muslim Mosques to Malay names. In some cases they have done so and in other cases they are still trying. Some of these mosques have been around for several decades and are symbolic to the Indian Muslim community. The Malay authorities want the Indian Muslim Mosque to integrate with the Malay Mosques which is something reasonable to ask for. The Indian Muslims also should make greater attempts to integrate the Malay community. However even the Indian Muslim community often are mellow in their responses, the Malay authorities display little tact, tolerance or sensitivity in achieving it and go to the extent of forcing it instead of trying to reach a compromise. In this case, one side chooses confrontation. In Singapore, there has been a fair number of cases involving Chinese temples. Only after severe confrontation were the cases resolved. There have been cases of Hindu temples being forced to relocate or demolish and many Hindus are not happy about how it was handled. The worst handling is in the case of mosques in Singapore. About130 mosques since 1965 have been torn down over a period of fourty years which took the Muslim community more than 200 years to build. The government's argument is that they required the land and that they replaced it with bigger mosques. However most Muslims in Singapore are still deeply unhappy about it since the government chose to deal with the demolishment and compensation issues only with its statutary board MUIS instead of the community. This will likely errupt as a major issue at some future point as it has been the case in many countries. Here too, one can see the lack of sensistivity and tolerance adopted by all the various quarters in dealing with mosque land. I remember a couple of Indian Muslim friends were extremely unhappy about the redevelopment of one of their mosques, Bencoolen Mosque, which they consider to be their heritage site. As per their accounts, the mosque when rebuilt was shoved underground and the Malay authorities decided to build service apartments above and during the process, they refused to hear the community's plea to protect their heritage site. Last year we saw the fiasco with AWARE. There was the Christian group who was growing uncomfortable with the neo-liberal approach to matters. They could have worked out a better solution than to seek instant solutions through takeovers. The neo-liberal group responded in similar fashion. If one is to watch the recordings of the meeting at Suntec where the Christian group was voted out, one can see how both sides managed the issue in the most ugly and uncivilised manner possible. That issue has not really died out and instead will reappear in future. In the current fiasco, you can find the whole issue in Malaysia being started unnecessarily by the Catholic newpaper. The word Allah is indeed an Arabic word that is used by Arabs of any religious background be it Muslim, Christian, Druze etc. However in the Malay language, the word has been exclusively used by Malays for centuries all this while. Especially when the Malays express disatisfaction at the word being used in a Catholic Malay paper, the editors should have been sensitive enough to avoid it and perhaps seek a solution over time. It is not going to make any difference to them if they chose not to use it. Instead they chose confrontation by going to the courts. In the response to it, we have seen some quarters reply with ugly and cowardly confrontation again refusing to act in a tolerant manner. In any place where there are more than one group of people, the rule of thumb ought to be tolerance and sensitivity, instead of trying to push one's agenda onto others. It is all about giving and taking instead of force down one's throat or pulling till the string snap. Sadly in both Singapore and Malaysia, despite history showing nasty incidents such as race riots especially after post independence, the people and the authorities still lack the ability to deal with one another in a tolerant way. Rather they rely on courts, power and authority. They simply are impotent in resolving issues amongst themselves when it comes to religion or race. Politicians especially in Singapore choose to still believe that the only way for peaceful coexistance is if we do not talk about it, let politicians decide everything etc etc failing to realise that these methods only exacerbate the risks of meltdown. Instead of developing the methods of peaceful resolution, the chief method remains inaction. I have lived several years outside the Asian region amongst communities that saw issues such as the above. In fact these kinds of issues occur everywhere. At times I have also seen them blow up into serious incidents of confrontation at times. However, situations never return to just like how weak and unstable as before. This is due the presence within the community of higher level of literacy and forward thinking leaders. These communities during such issues and incidents were able to forge new directions and work out new methods acceptable by all quarters in laying out how to deal with one another. For instance, in both Singapore and Malaysia even amongst the most literate individuals, the word "tolerance" is not something you hear all the time during communication. It is definitely not ingrained in them. Instead one often hear each other speak along the lines of stereotypes, misconceptions, bias and prejudice particularly in private conversations. In the other communities where I have lived, the word tolerance itself is something that everyone in the community talks about all the time when a sensitive issue comes up and everyone tries to measure responses along the yardscale of sensitivity. If there are issues where a compromise cannot be reached, the communities agree to work on it over time and hope to reach a compromise over time. I have seen simple issues taking like five years and people wait patiently for the outcomes. In all the issues that I have stated above and all other issues involving religion or race in Sinapore and Malaysia, they require time for amicable resolution.. It may take even up to a generation of time. Sadly Singaporean and Malaysian people and authorities have little patience. They want quick and immediate solutions and they are willing to use methods such as:  shove down their agenda, run to courts to seek rulings, take to the streets in violent protests or engage in cowardly attacks.. When US and its allies decided to intervene in Iraq, none expected they will strike the match to the kind of sectarian strife that errupted since then and burning till now. What lied beneath a dictatorship of a cruel tyrant was a society that was deeply divided and who had no capacity of dealing with one another in a tolerant manner just like in Malaysia and Singapore. The risks that Malaysians and Singaporeans today face are high unlike ever before and the only way forward is to chart new directions in race relations. Malaysians may like to brag how many records they have broken. Singaporeans like to brag in how many things they are number one. Dealing with one another in a tolerant manner is something both societies are way far off from how an average civilised society is able to do. Frankly it is this which matters because without this, any other material achievement can be lost when people lose themselves.  Read More →

Written by Our Correspondent Two days after The Temasek Review reported on the gigantic losses suffered by GIC in a  New York city property project Stuyvesant Town, the Straits Times has little choice but to follow suit with a watered-down version on 11 January 2010. (read our article here) When contacted by Straits Times, GIC finally confirmed that it incurred losses from an investment in the project after the American owners defaulted on a debt payment at the weekend. (read Straits Times article here) News of its possible losses surfaced as early as September last year in an article on the Wall Street Journal, but GIC had declined to comment on the matter. Neither did the Singapore media report on it. On 8 January 2010, Tishman Speyer and BlackRock Inc released an official statement saying that “they wouldn’t make a full scheduled debt payment to senior lenders on Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village.” (read report here) CWCapital, the special servicer acting on behalf of the lenders is expected to issue a notice of default over the payment which amounts to $16 million dollars. According to Straits Times, "GIC has written off the losses, which reports have estimated to be around US$575 million in debt and US$100 million to US$200 million in equity" which translates to a loss of between SGD$945 million and SGD$1.085 billion dollars, a mindboggling figure. (USD$1 = SGD$1.4) Ten years ago, the Straits Times will not bother to report on the losses and most Singaporeans will still be kept in the dark save for a few in the finance industry. Now with the new media providing an alternative source of news to the mainstream media, it can no longer afford censor such bad news from the general public. If it chooses to ignore the news, its credibility will take a beating as readers continue to flock to alternative news sites like ours for news not published by the state media. However, by publishing the news, the Straits Times is publicizing the matter to a wider audience.  The state media is hence stuck in a Catch-22 situation. Either way, we will be the ultimate beneficiaries as the state media continues to prove itself to be impotent, unreliable and untrustworthy in its coverage of local news, especially those pertaining to politics. Hear Mr Alex Tan's newcast on the above here EDITORS' NOTE: Please join our Facebook here. In the event our site is down again for whatever reasons in the future, we will inform readers on our Facebook.  Read More →