Ian On The Red Dot

I have been following the comments on the remarks made by Minister Khaw regarding the elderly Singaporeans living in nursing homes in JB.

I think it is a brilliant idea.

We can’t expect our government to take care of us. We can’t expect the government to control prices of anything in Singapore. So, if market forces push the cost of taking care of our elders in Singapore to a prohibitive price, then Singaporeans need to find our own alternatives.

I’ve not been to any nursing home in JB but I’m guessing that the lower cost of sticking an elderly Singaporean there is much more due to favorable exchange rates and the lower cost of living there then because of substandard facilities and care.

I mean, no Singaporean could possibly ever be guilty of dumping our elders in terrible conditions. Filial piety is one of our important Confucian virtues.

Just think of it as something similar to retiring in Australia. Spending your last days overseas. Away from the country of your birth. Away from the country you contributed to.

Filial Piety.

Would it be filial to keep our parents in Singapore and then deny them the healthcare that’s necessary. I mean, it is so expensive that there isn’t any way healthcare could possibly be offered to the people we love.

It isn’t like the middle class in Singapore have any room of cutting their own expenditures to find that little bit more to keep our parents in Singapore. I mean, it isn’t like we could do what these Chinese dudes did in these stories.

The truth is this.

We can’t depend on the government on anything. Except to collect our taxes, fines and send the guys to jail if they don’t serve NS. The only 3 guarantees you have with regards to our government.

So, what now? The cost of healthcare isn’t going to drop. Face it. Accept it. Embrace it.

So what are we to do? Forgetting the inconvenient issues of nationhood, statehood and all that jazz for the moment, it all boils down to this – do you think putting your elderly relative in a nursing home in JB is tantamount to abandonment.

To me, it does. To others, it may not. To Minister Khaw, it is the same thing as traveling from Boon Lay to Woodlands, and then a little bit more.

Notes:

I remember when I was in Primary school, we had these moral and civic lessons. We had a chapter on filial piety and there was an interesting story told in the textbook. I can’t remember the story exactly, and can’t seem to find a translated version. However, I did manage to find a reference to that story from this essay:

There is an ancient Chinese story which is very popular among Chinese. Once upon a time, there was a family of a grandfather, a father, and a son. The father did not take a good care of the Grandpa. When the Grandpa died, the father was so stingy that he took the Grandpa’s dead body out with a broken basket. When the young boy saw it, he told his father:” Dad, please don’t forget to bring the basket back. It is still useful.” The stingy father was very happy to hear what his little son said. Then he asked his son what he would use it for. His son answered:”I will re-use it when you die.“

I find it funny that our government wants us to have more children while at the same time suggesting to these offspring how they can possibly get rid of us. I mean, seriously, we must be idiots to breed the very people who will grow up and stick a knife into our backs and toss us off the ship like a cheap ragged doll.

On Monday, the holiday ended rather dramatically for my gf and me. We thought she had broken her leg because her leg had got trapped under something heavy and the lower part of it looked terribly deformed. So, we rushed her down to Tan Tock Seng Hospital’s Emergency department to get a X-ray of her leg and see a doctor.

We waited for 4 hours. Boy, did it feel long.

While waiting, I realized what was one of the problems with the Singapore healthcare system. The problem was people like my gf and me.

Here is the thing. When the accident first occurred, it looked really bad. Looked. We didn’t know how bad it was but because it looked back, we ruled out going to a GP, not that we knew of any 24 hours GP and I’ll come to that later, and went to a hospital.

I wonder how many of the cases at the Emergency department could have been handled by a GP. Actually, is the only range of options a GP, Polyclinic, Hospital? Are there any other healthcare providers in between – like a better equipped private clinic with its own X-ray facilities?

See. That’s the problem. I don’t know what my options are. And I should know. I should know so that we don’t unnecessarily tax resources that should be catering to real emergencies. And even if there might not be enough real emergencies to keep the nurses and doctors busy the whole night, at least it allows them to get some rest and prevent mistakes due to tiredness. I know I know. Aren’t these people operating in shifts. Shouldn’t they have been allocated enough rest time.

Well, think about this. How many of you can sustain a whole day of intense focused work even with the lunch breaks and tea breaks thrown in. Seriously. How many?

So, what’s the problem. Simple. I am not equipped with the basic skills to assess my own body.

I just learned about the Apgar score from Seth Godin’s The Big Moo. It is such simple ingenuity.

The Apgar score was devised in 1952 by Dr. Virginia Apgar as a simple and repeatable method to quickly and summarily assess the health of newborn children immediately after childbirth.

The Apgar score is determined by evaluating the newborn baby on five simple criteria on a scale from zero to two and summing up the five values thus obtained. The resulting Apgar score ranges from zero to 10. The five criteria (Appearance, Pulse, Grimace, Activity, Respiration) are used as a mnemonic learning aid.

I think we, as individuals who I hope are concerned about our own well-being, should learn more of such knowledge and methods.

A big part of the problem is us. We aren’t aware enough to prevent taxing the system.