Tag Archives: Doctors

The witnesses and criminals involved in India's largest corruption scandal ever have been dying mysteriously recently, leaving investigators baffled as clues and leads into a $1 billion dollar medical examination cheating scheme are being cut off with each passing death. In a plot reminisce of a dark crime novel, more than 20 witnesses and criminals have reportedly died from chest pains in prison, drowning in a village pond and a mysterious liver infection. On Saturday, a television reporter Akshay Singh died while investigating a suspect's death. He had sipped tea during an interview, but starting coughing and foaming at the mouth shortly after, He was rushed to hospital where doctors reportedly said he had died of a "heart attack".

32 year-old Dr Garuna Murthee Kavitha administered a chemotherapy drug the wrong way, putting her patient at a serious risk of "severe neurological damage" after she injected the drug into the membrane of the spinal cord, instead of feeding it intravenously to the patient. For her lapses, she was fined $2,000 and censured by the Singapore Medical Council (SMC). Dr Kavitha was practicing as a Medical Officer with the Singapore General Hospital at the time of her lapse, and is still currently with the hospital. The SMC hearing was convened on 21st April this year, but was published today on the SMC website.

Over the years, medicine has been dehumanised; doctors are being forced to behave more like businessmen. Medical care has become a commodity for sale. Patients dehumanise doctors when they treat doctors as technicians whose services can be bought for a price or when they put doctors on a pedestal and regard them as demigods who cannot and must not fail to deliver a cure.

In a new training programme by Parkway East Hospital, The Medical High School programme which started on Mar 28, a total of 60 students from Dunman High School, Victoria School and Victoria Junior College will undergo 3 weekends worth of immersion as a medical professional in the hospital. Youths aged 15 to 18 will take part in various medical emergency scenarios – such as when an appendicitis patient is admitted to the hospital. They will take on roles as surgeons and scrub nurses in an actual operating theatre at the hospital, where under the direction of specialists, they will be trained to do laparoscopic surgery.

About 40% of children aged 2 and below do not receive full pneumococcal vaccines because parents find the costs too expensive, according to doctors. At a polyclinic, one dose costs around $150 and between $170 and $180 at most general practitioners (GPs). It is recommended that a child receives three doses before he or she turns 1, which brings the total cost to about $500.

First, both professions need to clear the air and explain to the public how fees are set and arbitrated. Reduction of the lawyers' fees from $900,000 to $180,000 is staggering; what happens to citizens of lesser means who wish to appeal and challenge the fees charged? Professions enjoy the privilege of self-regulation, including setting their own fees, because society trusts professionals to place public interests above their own.

My husband, the sole breadwinner in the family, passed away unexpectedly when I was into my seventh month of pregnancy. It was a devastating period for my seven-year-old daughter and me. Upon knowing our situation, my gynaecologist, Dr Adrian B. Woodworth from Thomson Women’s Clinic, waived his prescription and caesarean charges. He also approached the anaesthetist, Dr Yvonne Lim, and paediatrician, Dr Lillian Lim, and they also waived their charges before my delivery date, to ease my financial burden. This episode goes to show that not all private-sector doctors and hospitals are profit-driven.