Hot on the heels of the SARS fracas and the SAF tragedies, we are reminded of yet another mishap. this time by our highly suspect hospitals. On June 2001, tank driver Corporal Chua Ya Ta sought medical treatment from his camp MO. He complained that his leg was hurting and was thus referred to NUH (ok this time round, SAF actually did the right thing : so they're cool). At NUH he was treated and sent home, but 3 hours later, he went back complaining of pain and was admitted. 2 doctors accused him of "malingering" (ang moh for keng). Even when he fainted in the shower, had blood in his stool and his fingers, toes and face were turning blue, doctors described Corporal Chua as in stable condition and not in "clinical danger".
Two days later, Corporal Chua died of an acute bacterial infection.
What the hell are our doctors doing? Not in clinical danger? You have to be kidding... Do we need some kinda list to show what constitutes in clinical danger? Is NUH staffed with incompetents? Please lah, even I can tell you, you can't fake blue toes and bloody stools. Why didn't the NUH doctors treat Corporal Chua's case seriously? Wake up! Do they still remember something called the Hippocratic Oath? Let me quote,
"I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures which are required, avoiding those twin traps of over-treatment and therapeutic nihilism."
"I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm."
And most importantly, "Above all, I must not play at God."
ALL the measures required to treat a sick person. Were all measures that were required taken? Hell no! After all, they had already labeled him a malingerer. He was a chao keng, just trying to siam (evade) training. But we have to ask, are the doctors in the position to make that call?? Doctors took the Hippocratic Oath, which basically spells out a doctor's duties to his fellow people. NOWHERE in the Oath does it mention anything about making moral judgments of patients or whether they are kenging or not. It simply wasn't their call to make. It was not their place to judge. They had no right to discriminate.
Even the camp MO, who had the proper authority to ascertain whether Corporal Chua was a malingerer, rightly advised him to go to NUH to seek treatment. The camp MO didn't feel that Corporal Chua was kenging, so why did the NUH doctors feel otherwise? By profiling NSF Corporal Chua as a malingerer, simply because they were both too incompetent to properly diagnose the problem and too fricking bo chap to care, these doctors are guilty of violating the Hippocratic Oath, guilty of professional negligence and guilty of discrimination.
Probably fed up with all the bullshit, the family of Corporal Chua is filing a suit against 6 doctors and NUH for their negligence in treating their elder son. I for one hope that proper Judgment is done this time.
Go get em.
See Guai Lan
www.thevoiddeck.org