TR EMERITUS

Written by our Correspondent The son of one of the victims of the medication blunder at KKH Mr Ng Chun Kiat had spoken out against some of the factual inaccuracies in reports carried by the state media about the case! Mr Ng, who is a son of Madam Ng L.K. started a blog 15 November 2009, 10 days after the incident took place not only "to seek redress but also to raise public awareness about what's happening, which may not be as transparent as it seems." Madam Ng, a cancer patient was given the chemotherapy drug doxorubicin in a few hours instead of days. The other patient, Madam Poh, was infused with more than 5 times the dosage of 5-Fluorouracil and is not out of danger yet. Mr Ng took issue with the unprofessional conduct of the pharmacists after they were alerted to the error and the fact that they have yet to apologize to his mother: "Upon seeing us discussing the obvious mistake made, the pharmacist stopped whatever she was doing and walked over to us, trying to explain things yet again. She then told us that my mum's drug was not as potent as Mdm Ng's and it was ok for us to head back home. I was totally in "awe" by her statement. She then asked the two patients if we wanted to stay in hospital for further observations! I couldn't just stand there and hear her crap, choosing to interrupt her immediately and saying "This is not a matter of us wanting to stay but rather you telling us that we have to stay for further observations and tests to make sure that everything is fine!". She then replied "Then can I request that the patients stay over night?". We found out later (during an inquiry arranged 5 days after the incident!!!) that pharmacists have no right to say whether or not one should be fine to leave the hospital and this should only be addressed by doctors." He was also peeved that her mother was warded in a B2 ward and she had to pay first pending hospital investigations: "The pharmacist then arranged for both my mum and Mdm Ng to be admitted into Ward B2 over night (A grave mistake committed by the hospital yet they are arranging for both victims to be staying in Ward B2) and requested for my sis and the son of Mdm Ng to follow her to the administrative counter to process the admission. My sis then came back with a form requiring us to fill in the particulars for deduction of the stay in hospital. WE HAVE TO PAY TO STAY FOR THE MISTAKE MADE BY KKH?! Now tell me, if you were in the shoes of my family, how would you feel and what would you do? We were told that the payment will be made first by the patient before we can submit the claims!!! OMG!!!" Mr Ng disputed the reports in the state media that KKH took the mistake seriously and was apologetic about it: "We were told that the hospital takes this incident SERIOUSLY and is very APOLOGETIC about their mistake. Honestly, I beg to differ. Even when the incident happened, the rate at which a doctor came to my mum and Mdm Ng, mind you it was a run-on-the-mill doctor who wasn't exactly sure of the effects etc, was appalling. The specialists weren't even activated immediately to rectify the blunder, leaving the two patients and their extended family members to worry the night away." Only when one of his aunt leaked the story to a friend working in the media who got in touch with the medical affairs department requesting an interview with the victims did a senior doctor from KKH bother to give them an explanation, 5 days after the incident. Such medication errors are not uncommon in Singapore's public hospitals where junior doctors and nurses often work continuously for long hours without adequate rest. Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan dismissed worker fatigue as a cause for the blunder and instead chose to lay the blame on the manufacturer for the "similarity" in the appearance of the two infusion pumps used to deliver chemotherapy drugs into the patients. One is supposed to deliver it in the matter of days while the other in hours. The two pharmacists apparently got the two pumps mixed up. Despite the severity of the error which could potentially have fatal consequences for the two patients, KKH has refused to issue a public apology so far. The CEO of KKH, Prof Ivy Ng who is incidentally the wife of Education Minister Dr Ng Eng Hen had remained silent so far. The state media tries to downplay the mistake by highlighting the "fact" that doxorubicin which was the drug given to Mrs Ng, can be infused over 15 minutes. Mr Ng questioned the accuracy of the report: "After reading several reports, I realised that Mrs Yip(Mdm Ng's) drug was always mentioned to the public (5-fluorouracil) but as for my mum's case, it's just a brief statement saying the drug given can actually be done in 15 minutes. During the inquiry, senior medical oncologist Dr Soh Lay Tin even "assured" us that "it's ok" to have it injected in 6 minutes. To me, the infusion clearly exceeded the prescription given by doctor. So how can that be ok?! How true is the above statement?" The Temasek Review has conducted an email interview with Mr Ng Chun Kiat to shed more light on the incident and raise public awareness about it. Read Mr Ng's blog here  Read More →

Written by our Correspondent In a rare public admission of his mistake, Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew said his insistence on bilingualism in the early days of education policy was "wrong" which caused many students to give up learning the Chinese language. Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew said his insistence on bilingualism in the early years of education policy was "wrong". Instead it caused generations of students to be put off the Chinese language. During a speech made at the official opening of the Singapore Centre for Chinese Language, MM Lee said: "We started the wrong way. We insisted on ting xie (listening), mo xie (dictation) - madness! We had teachers who were teaching in completely-Chinese schools. And they did not want to use any English to teach English-speaking children Chinese and that turned them off completely." Following the rise of China in the 1980s, Singapore has embarked on a nationwide effort to promote the study of the Chinese language in schools. The Republic has established close trading links with China in recent years and Chinese is becoming more important as a language to build bridges with the Chinese-speaking world including China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. During the early days of Singapore's independence, many Chinese schools were closed down on suspicions of being breeding ground for communism. Though they were later re-opened, English had replaced Chinese as the medium of education leading to a decline in the standard of Chinese in Singapore schools over the years. While most ethnic Singaporean Chinese can read and write in Chinese, English remains the lingua franca used in work. Many are also ignorant of Chinese culture, history and literature. Besides the language policy, Lee had made a few notable mistakes during the course of his political career such as the "Stop at Two" policy in the 1970s which contributed partly to Singapore's declining birth rate today. Another controversial policy was the "graduate mother scheme" to encourage graduate women to bear more children. A strong proponent of eugenics, Lee thought (and still think) that offsprings of graduate women will be smarter and of "better stock". The scheme was quietly dropped in the aftermath of the 1984 elections which saw the PAP lost a significant percentage of the votes cast. At 86 years of age, Lee is the oldest and probably the longest-serving MP in the world. He appears in the papers almost daily, more frequently than his son, the Prime Minister of Singapore Lee Hsien Loong. Lee said lately that he could have earned more money in the private sector if he was not a minister. His annual salary is more than five times that of U.S. President Barack Obama. With more and more mainland Chinese flocking to work and live in Singapore, English-educated Singaporeans may have to relearn the language in order to communicate with these newcomers and to "re-integrate" into Singapore society.  Read More →

The Malaysian Insider, 17 November 2009 This just in. Risda chairman Tan Sri Abdul Rahim Thamby Chik today suggested Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad be given the post of Senior Minister in Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak’s cabinet. The former Malacca chief minister said Dr Mahathir’s wide experience as prime minister for 22 years – the era of various development projects to strengthen the economy – should be harnessed to help the progress of Malaysia and other Islamic countries. He wasn’t joking but said it would be a little status for the acerbic politician who has been invited by countries such as Japan and Egypt to share his views and experiences. While we are unsure if Najib will take to the idea, it has to be said the country did prosper under Dr Mahathir but at the great expense of a failure in human capital development, justice, freedom of expression and basic human rights. But the good doctor has had 22 years in power and what more can he do as senior minister, unless it is for status purposes? The various physical and economic developments started off with promise but have languished over the years, which no doubt Dr Mahathir blames on his successor. National car project Proton still requires government help and Dr Mahathir has insisted it will not be sold, now that his advice is being taken seriously again. The Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) and the associated bandwidth remains a promise on paper while neighbours like Singapore and Thailand zip ahead with bigger bandwidth at a fraction of the price offered in Malaysia. The Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ) stands out a a memorial to economic ambitions wasted by weak governance and a lack of respect for or fear of financial regulations – a standard anthem in many government projects over the years. Then there are the ribbons of privatised highways that remain pricey for both motorists and the government if, for any reason, toll charges are not increased in what is seen as lopsided agreements. The administrative capital Putrajaya was built on petro-ringgits and leased to the government by Petronas, which will in turn pay tax that will be used to repay the national oil firm for the broad avenue hemmed by buildings alive in the day but dead at night. If anything, the annual Auditor-General’s report over so many years is the report card of years of extravagance and single-mindedness Dr Mahathir had taken to move the agrarian country into a industrialised and later developed nation. He succeeded, to an extent.  After all, he always knew best what the country needed, if not wanted. But Dr Mahathir failed in allowing us the freedom to think, despite giving us access to the vast knowledge of the world. He sought to control if he couldn’t cajole us to his Vision 2020. And when all failed, he kept to a racial line of Malays being threatened by others jealous of their success – the punchline of many Instant Cafe comedy routines. Like Rahim, we can look back fondly at Dr Mahathir’s contributions and reason out why he should be in Najib’s cabinet as a senior minister. But unlike Rahim, it is better to keep Dr Mahathir in our past rather than let him chip away his own legacy and curb our nascent freedoms. After all, didn’t Najib himself say the days of “government knows best” are over? Republished from The Malaysian Insider  Read More →