~by: Ravi Philemon~
Mdm Perumal (not her real name) is a 66 year old widow who lives by herself in a rental flat, and works as a part-time cleaner. She recently went to see the doctors at the polyclinic for severe flu. As her heartbeat was irregular, the doctor at the polyclinic asked that she take a chest X-Ray. The chest X-Ray revealed a profound white spot near her heart and she was referred to a specialist clinic in a public hospital.
The doctor at the public hospital after examining her, said that the X-Ray is not conclusive, but that he is concerned because when compared to the X-Ray taken the year before, the white spot near her heart has gotten more profound. The doctor asked Mdm Perumal to go for a CT-Scan.
But Mdm Perumal would not be going for the CT-Scan anytime soon as she cannot afford the $150 required for the CT-Scan.
“I paid $9 at the polyclinic for consultation, $19 for the chest X-Ray and $8 for medicine. Then I paid $30 for consultation at the specialist clinic. So, I’ve paid over $60 without counting my transportation costs so far. I earn only $400 as a part-time cleaner working from 8am to 1pm. My health does not permit me to work longer hours. The work is also tough”, Mdm Perumal narrates.
“I pay $28 for my rental flat from HDB. Then about $40 every month to SP Services and then another $20 for service and conservancy charges; I must put aside about $80 for transportation and another $200 for my food. I must also buy new clothes or slippers because the ones I have do sometimes get torn or worn out. So you see I have only about $10 or $20 left every month. So how can I afford the $150 for the CT-Scan?” she asks.
She claims that although she has about $8,000 in her Medisave, she cannot use the Medisave to pay for the scan as she is seeing the doctor as an outpatient at the specialist clinic.
When asked if she had approached a medical social worker, Community Development Council or grassroots organisations for help, Mdm Perumal says, “For over 60 years I have stood on my own two legs. Why should I seek help now?”
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Mdm Perumal’s daughter was afflicted with intellectual disability and muscular dystrophy from birth. She passed away last year at the age of 44.
Her husband passed away in 1999 and he was 71 years of age when he passed away.
Mdm Perumal would receive $343 in cash from Workfare (see HERE).
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Everthing sg cliams to be number one and medical care is last.
Imagine this lady is in Australia, all her medical will be taken care.
What’s is the use if Sg has so much surplus and yet unable to provide decent health care to its citizens.
See website
http://australia.gov.au/topics/benefits-payments-and-services
I fail to understand why there is regular reporting of what the govt or ministries must do. It would be more meaningful if the community helps instead and leaves the govt to manage the bigger issues. If the honourable Mdm Perumal chooses not to rely on others, she makes the choice. I wonder if she will accept help if someone will pay the SGD150 for her CT scan. Has the kind Ravi offered?
@give and then report – Enough of your callow proposition. We are discussing profound matter concerning our nation ill and the subject id definitely not about Ravi the philanthropist. Why don’t you just ask LHL to give? I am sure he would most gladly do so. It’s pittance to him in comparison to the amount he and his wife earn. If solving Mdm Perumal’s medical diagnostic problem heals a nation, I am sure many kind soul would have helped.
Do you have any idea how many people are there in the similar dire predicament as Mdm. Perumal?
give and then report
I wonder if she will accept help if someone will pay the SGD150 for her CT scan. Has the kind Ravi offered?
…………….
why NOT you? why you point fingers @ some1 else
so easy to ungkat balls..so difficult to make the 1st move?
and if you think $150 is the endin xpenses..dream on…for an idiot liked YOU!!! you don’t even know what comes from behind…
For those of you who ask if Mr Ravi Philemon had offered help, you should read this: http://www.asiaone.com/News/Education/Story/A1Story20090205-119709.html. He is a kind person who has helped the homeless, disabled and the disadvantaged for a very long time and there are many who can vouch how kind he is.
I fail to understand why there is regular reporting of what the govt or ministries must do. It would be more meaningful if the community helps instead and leaves the govt to manage the bigger issues. If the honourable Mdm Perumal chooses not to rely on others, she makes the choice. I wonder if she will accept help if someone will pay the SGD150 for her CT scan. Has the kind Ravi offered?
=====
the gov and BIG ISSUES ? ARE YOU KIDDING US OR YOURSELF ?
the poor lady has 8k in medisave, does she need your help or some soul or BIG GOV ???
think, you uesless spineless head, 8k HOLD UP in medisave >????
FOR YOUR COFFIN!!!!
SAYS BIG GOV MINISTERS LAH !!!!!
BIG ISSUES ???? GOV ???
TRY CHEATING THE PEOPLE !!!!!
Where’s the “profound white spot” near the heart? On the lungs? I admire the madam for depending on herself and respect her decision not to seek help. If she “claims” she has $8,000 in Medisave, she has no reason to lie. Madam Anna is a strong independent woman to be admired. Modest means does not equate a person to be pitied/unhappy; she may be richer in spirit than many.
I am not medically trained but I know for sure if the heart stop functioning, the patient dies.
Since the diagnosis is yet to be conclusive I am not jumping into any conclusion but it could be a build up of cholesterol near the heart and if not deal with early may result in heart attack and sudden death. However if it is discovered early, disaster could be prevented and patient can be healed. Hence it is important that Mdm Perumal takes the CT scan as soon as possible.
However for any one case reported there are hundreds of cases go unnoticed hence if something is not done to help these people by the authority, death resulted unnoticed and those who have the means to help is not bought to accountability.
Government is elected and benefit from tax payers contribution. She also benefits from the people hard work to make the country clicks. Government ultimately is responsible of the people’s welfare and should not push it aside when the people wants her to take up the responsibility.
Today this government can open our job market to foreigners and even gives them PR and citizenship, hence local being replaced by foreigners could fall into the next phase of things. We also cannot discount the possibility that this government may suggest that people like Mdm Perumal is not much needed and a burden to this country and wants to remove her citizenship or send her to Johore. The pro government camp may then argue that for Singapore to grow and stay at the top the idea is indeed good. Some TV soap opera has suggested that if one disregard their own kind and disregard relationship, devour their sons and daughters or send them to the wolves, one remain king and pretty well off. Do we want our country to go down this road?
busybody13 November 2011
I am not medically trained but I know for sure if the heart stop functioning, the patient dies
…………
wah no need to say lark…
unless you buy a robocop VI model lark..
me owned heart functioned @ 20 % output
hoped to drop dead anytime/anywhere
A associate told me that she heard in presence of a financial assistance staff to tell the front counter NOT to give 2 week medication since the patient cant pay their bills as she herself was there applying for the medicare funds been jobless and homeless.
The way I see it is that Sporean have to make oneself bankrupt or to be in jail by default meaning to say to make oneself degrade, disgrace then the govt so call extend some peanuts to these Sporean , then Sporean will have to remember their votes is so important such that they have feed the Monkey to screw them up.
I knew of such X convict purposely “steal things” to be a jailbird as there are medical doctors, food on the table and place to sleep then to be in the street hungry.Someone make themselves bankrupt and homeless as he needed a heart bypass. Not as MP openly leak out his medical bill in the press as “so cheaT or cheaP”.
If you are a C class patient in specialist clinic in SGH, be prepared to be treated like an unwanted pest of annoyance by some (not all the doctors). The arrogant ones, behind closed door, are abrupt, brief and intolerant of even a few questions on what is your medical state of health when you know your own physical state of body better. Some are even hostile enough with such brevity of answers to queries as “no”, “yes”, “ok”, and then your next appointment is XX date after a brief examination. You don’t know if you need to pursue further course of action. Yet in the crab media of health promotion, they encourage older people to go for health screeing and maybe early detection, aggressive treatment to prevent conditions deteriorating to a point of no recovery hope.
HOW HYPOCRITICAL when they should have lectured their doctors to respect patient’s need for information to make decision?.
Health care in Singapore is very expensive, we can’t afford to “experiement” with different private doctors to find out our actual state of our health condition.
Just ask around your friends, the standard of doctor-patient communications in public hospitals are simply apalling these days. One gets the impression that they are there only for the money, nothing of patient care.
@ Fed Up
Yes, in Australia, their citizen and PR get FREE MEDICAL CARE INCLUDING ALL SURGERY as needed paid for by medicare in public hospital. And you paid nothing for CT Scan, ultrasonund scan, X-rays, and day surgery like kidney stone removal, colonoscopy, appendicitis etc. You even can require the hospital to supply you with your medical records which you can refer to another doctor for second opinion if you have been correctly diagnosed. Over here, you are likely to meet with hostile response if you make such a request – I have tried.
And doctors don’t treat patients with contempt – free notwithstanding. Over here, we paid a lot to be treated like an unwanted dog in a public hospital.
It is commonly known that in Australia people like LHL, family and friends will pay a lot of taxes to fund the free public health care. More than half of their salaries would be wipe off by taxes alone if we were to apply Australian system in Singapore. No way will the system be feasible in Singapore because it disadvantages and inconvenient our elites. They will go elsewhere if you make them pay high taxes.
In Singapore the rich don’t need to pay so much income taxes, the working class carry the burden in paying COE, GST, levy, high HDB etc. This system suits the elites very well.
@ busybody
I recall the system works like this in Australia. Low income earners with less than A$20K gross per year pays nothing of levy for medicare for access to public hospitals and services and a small sum to see a GP. Those earning more than $20K gross per year, pays a levy of 2.5% of gross salary. It is not that exorbitant of costs to maintain such a system.
A friend of mine of self-election is paying A$3.5 for cataract surgery with Westmead Private hospital about the same as in Singapore national eye centre for “non-subsidized” fee (which I believe include a large profit component as Westmead Private Hospital care in Sydney). So the “subsidy” in Singapore is merely a reduction from this profit-inclusive market pricing i.e. it may be priced to actual cost RATHER THAN THE FICTION OF ACTUAL SUBSIDY at the expense of taxpayer. So the public media talk of Australian system too expensive for Singapore is probably POPPYCOCK.
Medication in Australia is through private pharmacy but a lot of prescriptions are heavily subsidized vy the Commonwealth and is still a fraction of what we pay in our hospital system.
to the:- @yeoman and busybody 12 November 2011
your reply to yeoman n busybody comments sound stoopid whoever you think you are.
yeoman and busybody 12 November 2011
your anti-government tripe may be fashionable on here but as usual you guys never have anything concrete to back your claims up with.
you see a sad state of affairs here precisely because your own lives are so sad.
wake up boys. don’t live in cloud cuckoo land where you are the perfect human being and the rest of the world is big bad and evil.
grow a bit of backbone sometime yeah? more like the good lady mentioned in the article. stop blaming everything and everyone else for the situation you perceive yourself to be in, and you might find that your country is far greater than the sum of your individual experience
hey what’s your nic
this is no brave act when responding wihtout a proper nic but using others instead?
you dont seem to understand simple english here.
what are you trying to achive in trying to claim that people are putting blame on others for their misfortunes when all they are trying to say is to criticise the wayward pro-rich pro-alien govt policies that is so obvious except to those who pretend not tosee or are flaoting on clouds nad living in ivory towers or are simply too daft.
you call others to have backbones and hpw do you know thay don’t.
it is strange you are able to tell that others are not faring betetr than you do just becasue they criticse soem gvot policies tht have impoverished many sngaporeans by and large.
you seem so godo at blowing hot air but offer no concrete ideas of relevance at all.
haiz,
some ppl here always try to bootlick their master’s feet by their irrational comments.
it is pathetic to note that some PAPPY dogs are ruunign amok here barking up the wrong trees all the time.
no wonder our country is in chaos.
@agongkia
hey you seem like a lost soul.
what are you babbling about really.
you don’t seem to have a firm idea what you are supporting much like a mad dog howling.
bow-wow-wow,PAies dogs are all around barking and trying to bite but it seems they are toothless dogs only.
telling those who offer cosntructive criticsims here to offer solutions show how stupid the PAPies doggies are.
bow-wow-wow,ka-chang.
busybody 12 November 2011
@give and then report – Enough of your callow proposition. We are discussing profound matter concerning our nation ill and the subject id definitely not about Ravi the philanthropist. Why don’t you just ask LHL to give? I am sure he would most gladly do so. It’s pittance to him in comparison to the amount he and his wife earn. If solving Mdm Perumal’s medical diagnostic problem heals a nation, I am sure many kind soul would have helped.
Do you have any idea how many people are there in the similar dire predicament as Mdm. Perumal?
hi busybody
you said it right leh
anyway this chap may be the same moron who keep bootlicking his masters’ ass by trying to show how smart he is asking idiotic questions and passing remarks that really tell how empty he is up there.
@busybody 12 November 2011
@give and then report –
Do you have any idea how many people are there in the similar dire predicament as Mdm. Perumal?
———————————
hi busybody
the trouble with people like this one is that do not really care nor understand that countless singaporeans have been done a grave disservice by the govt.
they prefer to pretend that all is well maybe because they benefit/profit from such wayward policies themselves by their greed and so are blinded.
let them rot away.
karma will have its way sooner than such blokes think.
I have all the while emphasis that CPF should and must be allow to be allow to be utilizie at the discretion of the owners and not the hosiptal or the manipulators. This is definately a flaw by all standards.
Now if she earning 4000/ she should have no problem paying because after deduction of her CPF she still have 3200/, but now she is living in real poverty and also please REMBERBER she is not the ONLY ONE LIVING IN THIS CONDITION
Yep ! SO UNFAIR !
The ministers pay themselves MILLIONS of dollars in their salary.
They throw away MILLIONS of dollars in F1 and YOG useless projects.
But when it comes to helping the poor and elderly, it is in meager dollars and cents.
I think it is high time to remove the PM and his team in GE016 and GE2021.
Which is more important ? !
The poor citizens or those useless projects like F1, YOG and the coming SEA Games where they will again spend millions of dollars.
WAKE UP PAP ! ! !
The citizens are more important. If not why should they vote for you ? !