Odysseys of George

ENGLISH OF TOMORROW EU ANNOUNCEMENT

The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility.

As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5- year phase-in plan that would become known as “Euro-English”.

In the first year, “s” will replace the soft “c”. Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy.

The hard “c” will be dropped in favour of “k”. This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter.

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the s ekond year when the troublesome “ph” will be replaced with “f”. This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter.

In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible.

Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling.

Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent “e” in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away.

By the 4th yer people wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing “th” with “z” and “w” with “v”.

During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary “o” kan be dropd from vords kontaining “ou” and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reil sensi bl riten styl.

Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru.

Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst plas.

If zis mad you smil, pleas pas on to oza pepl.

20 days ago while operating, I was informed by my anaesthetist that a mishap occured. An ambulance from Seremban Hospital on its way to Selayang Hospital had one of its tyre burst sending the ambulance with its 6 occupants into a ravine. 3 newspaper reported the incident in a small column mentioning that all 6 occpants were treated as outpatients and discharged. The truth – The driver was admitted for observation suffering from cerebral concussion. The patient arrived to Selayang Hospital and an elective surgery was set for him (urgency?). The nurse had some cerebral injury with liver and spleen injuries for which she was inubated and treated conservatively in ICU and later recovered. The worst,a lady doctor, houseman 2 months into her service, married was brought in with GCS 3/15 with severe head injury and bilateral multiple rib fractures and bilateral haemopneumothorax. She was also found to have a lax anus which suggested that she probably had cervical spine injury. If not mistaken, she was later found to be a primid in her early pregnancy. The other 2 occupants – not known.

Guess what? It took the newspaper 4 days to publish the accident. The doctor passed away recently and again the papers took another 4 – 5 days to publish the outcome. In between, the Minister and DG promised compensation and presence of insurance coverage for doctors accompanying patients in any transport. An inquiry was promised. A compensation was also promised.

Outcome? Well the lady housman passed away on day 19 post trauma in Serdang Hospital. No compensation was given as she is not confirmed in service. MMA gave a cheque for RM10 000/=
as a form of sympathy. Many unresolved issue, nobody seems to question and address these issues.

Problem: to be confirmed one will have to work for at least a year and have successfully completed their kursus induksi. Therefore, most of them who are not confirmed are all houseman and some junior MO. These are the people who will end up accompanying patients. And they are not covered. It is different for the nurses and MA or attentdents, as most of them are already confirmed in service thus the ex-gratia scheme comes into act if anything do happen to them.

Other issues: 1.maintenance of the ambulance and credibility of the drivers.
2. When does a doctor accompany a patient — this case was totally unnecessary for any doctors to accompany.
3. Can a doctor exercise his right to refuse to accompany patient since he is not covered? Or does he do it for the patient and country even if the government could not care less for their doctors!
4. When a police officer goes down in the line of duty or when two paratroopers collide among themselves, their fate and condition is alerted in the news for public knowledge. But when a doctor goes done in “the service of mankind”, why hush it and do we condone it?

Many senior doctors feel sad for her and many junior doctors are worried about their safety. Immediate family members and spouse and children are all worried and sympathetic. But where is our voice? What has the government and MMA have to say? What do our fellow doctors say?

As for me I have brought my disgust and opinions up directly to the President of MMA but wonder whether it fell on deaf ears.

My condolences to the spouse and parents of Dr Nor Baizura.

Hi

I am new to this. Anyway just wanted to set an idea or two and share it with many.
Hope you will enjoy this blog. Feel free to share it with anybody.

Happy blogging

George