Thursday, April 30, 2009

Emergency Department Episode

Last Sunday, I was at the Kuala Lumpur Hospital Emergency Unit to visit someone who had knocked into my car earlier in the morning. Many would have known what had transpired there.
I waited for about a few minutes and sensing that none of the patients waiting outside were called-in, I knocked on the treatment room door and walked in. To my dismay I found two doctors -- one reading newspapers and the other doing his own thing.
I could not digest this because, there were people waiting outside and these doctors were taking their own time. It so happened that a Bernama reporter was at hand witnessing the whole incident without my knowledge. After a while, I was approached by the reporter who got a few quotes from me on the incident and subsequently wrote a story about it.
It was not my intention to blow this issue out of propotion but many would agree with me that the level of service rendered at our government run hospitals, especially the emergency unit, needs a major overhaul.
I have spoken to the Health Minister about it who was fast in coming out with an investigation report on the matter. Thank you sir.
All I wanted was to improve the level of service at government agencies and departments but when I see for myself the suffering of people, it is just too much to bear. We can come out of reports and studies but the bottom line is that the people are quite irked with the civil sector service level, at least in some departments. My aim was only one and not political in nature. Thank you for your attention.