Wednesday, December 28, 2005

Doctor doctor!

I took my mum to a government hospital somewhere in KL for a check-up and we had to wait really long just to see the doctor.

Her appointment was scheduled to be at 10am. We arrived at 9:40am, registered my mum, and the waiting game began. We didn't get to see the doctor until around 11:35am. We entered the room and saw a few of the 4th year students sitting inside. Two of the students were then asked to entertain us. We were promised that it would only take 15 minutes. Well, the whole thing actually took one hour and the kind of questions they ask can really make you wonder how qualified these doctors are.

These two female 4th year students can't speak proper English, whatmore wanting us to "TRY" to understand what they're trying to say. They kept repeating the same questions and some of the questions are totally absurb. Among them are....

"How do you feel today?" (they asked this numerous times within that one hour interview)
"How do you feel the last time?" (asked this twice)
"Do you know where you are now?" (DUH!!!)
"Do you know what's the date today?" (despite writing it down on the paper)
"How old are you now?" (despite asking many times about the birth of date)
"How do you minus 7 from 100?" (what?! mathematic class ar?)
"You know, world, how you spell back?" (what? I don't understand leh...)
(she meant to ask how to you spell "world" backwards!! whatever for?!)
"How many children you have?" (after telling them I'm the eldest, and followed by one boy and one gal....)

The list goes on and on.... It was like a typical teacher-student classroom interview setting. They were treating my mum like some sort of a stupid person.

My mum can't really speak and understand BM and they took the advantage of whispering to each other in BM. My mum told them that she was taking a medicine for health and one of the student whispered to the other student, "apa ubat itu? tahu tak?"

I was sighing away, reading my papers and occasionally give them that really hard glare.....

Finally, I exploded and told them off, telling them that I do lots of reading myself and is quite knowledgeable and that what they're doing is really so unprofessional. I may not be a doctor but I don't think a doctor should treat an illiterate person like some donkey. Immediately they kept their trap up. They even relay some wrong information to the main doctor we were supposed to see cos when that doctor reviewed us, she told us that based on what she compiled from the two students, she gathered that my mum said this and that, which I found really amusing. I stared at them back and even corrected that the medicine my mum is taking is not what they claimed it to be. They immediately looked down and flip through their book.

Now I know why my friends who are now doctors in other countries just do not want to come back to Malaysia to work. And I also know why some friends do not have the confidence in Malaysia's young doctors!!

15 comments:

Lazymama said...

Really that bad ah!?

My mother used to be treated at GH KL, and agreed to you the waiting time is very long, usually we arrived at 8.30am and finished at around 4-5pm..so you can imagine! But some of the specialist doctor there are quite good.

Later I have requested her to be transfer to Selayang Hospital, waiting time still long but better.

jazzmint said...

wahh...they sound pretty bad asking all those silly questions and making fun of patient.

There was once I went to Klinik Kesihatan when I was pregnant for checkup cause it was opposite my old house, to my amaze, they ask me to go home cause it's not my day, they told me taman tun people is friday.

Whoaa..what if it's emergency...they want me to wait till friday? Siao siao one

Tracy said...

Sharon, government hospital's services are always like dat. Dat's why sometimes ppl prefer to pay a bit more to go to private hospitals where the services are a lot better and faster. I had bad experiences with the nurses when my mom was hospitalised in General Hospital.

During my mom's stay in the hospital, I always requested to either to talk to the doctor in charge or the staff nurse with whom I can really talk and understand. When u need some info from the nurses in attendance, they would reply "tak tahu", "tak pasti", or "lebih baik tanya doktor". Really frustrated with such attitude.

Jess said...

That's really bad...till now the service still very poor! Seem like never change from few generations!!

Anonymous said...

Pretty irritating ah!

Cannot tahan working in the government hospital, my hubby quit!

They are not efficient at all... It's time they changed.

chanelwong said...

I heard smaller town govt hospital is ok because not that crowded compared to Klang Valley...

So cham...especially those who cannot afford to go Private Hospital..

ZMM said...

Those Interns especially the ones who get their places to study Medical just to fill the Bumi quota can be bad ler.

But I have seen really good ones too.

It's a shame that we have this quota system isn't it?

mom2ashley said...

what imbeciles!!!! you must be so frustrated!

ZMM said...

Btw, Happy New Year to you and your family!!

Chief said...

just want to leave you a Happy New Year wish

Anonymous said...

Yeah my FIL had bad experience in Penang Hospital, I even wrote to the Star to complain. The hospital didn't want to release the Xray when we asked to transfer to a private hospital due to their lack of experience in treating my FIL.

I can understand your frustrations here.

Babysmooches said...

It isn't a surprise that errors always happen in govt. hospitals. My late grandma was even administered wrong medication. My uncle happened to look through the medicine names and found that it didn't tally with what the doctor told him. Just imagine a layman who doesn't even understand or know how to read. We;'re talking about life and death

Egghead said...

imagine these idiot donkeys (those doctors) will be deciding if you live or die one day... sigh!

Loc Kee said...

hmm somewhere in KL means where?? and wats the pobem with ur mum? hope she will be fine.

me oso got a fren, disapointed with the system here... and jump to other place liao lo.....

http://loc1717.blogspot.com/2005/07/qu-yuan.html

Anonymous said...

btw, you were just tagged...

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