What they say is TRUE .....

RIP After Surgery, our major hospital has always been been the butt of jokes of our people whenever people hear they are admitted to the hospital. Whenever someone dear to us have medical problems and seek attention, they always dread the thought of going to the hospital.

This show the level of unease among the public regarding the quality of the health care system in Brunei Darussalam. One angry citizen who was angry with the level of service provided at the Emergency Section of the RIPAS hospital said that, what's the use of having a New Minister, a New Deputy Minister post, a new Permanent Secretary and a newly styled CEO when all these people who do not know anything about the management of health care system, dont know how and never change the system of how people work there. If the problem is the lack of manpower - then all these important posts should probably be reduced, so as to pay for the necessary staff and equipment that are most urgently needed in an Emergency Room and other important areas of health care.

One would never know about the situation of the Emergency Room if one never feel the urgency to go, whenball other options are not available.

And this is what happened recently to a close relative.

Because of the reputation of RIPAS Emergency Room, a relative who suffer a real emergency situation went to all the private clinics in Gadong, Kiulap area before finally a recommendation at JPMC to go to RIPAS Emergency Room was advice. There was no choice, as doctors were not available to attend. This was on a Saturday night, after 8pm when all private clinics were closed.

No choice and with the feeling of dread, the cousin went and sure enough, whatever that was written/complained about the hospital was true.

a) Despite having a letter of recommendation from JPMC to seek immediate medical attention as certain part of the body was still bleeding, the patient has to wait for 45minutes before a doctor was seen.

b) One would assume that with the big numbers labels above the doors of the Emergency Room, its all the rooms where doctors see their patients. Wrong... some of it are store rooms and god knows, how many doctors are actually working to look at patients' medical problems.

c) The doctor doesn't seemed to know where are the functioning equipment as a particular equipment were search from one room to another room before finding a working equipment in another doctor's room.

d) There was cat which was walking around the Emergency Room and no one seemed to bother to move the cat elsewhere. The sight of the cat, undoubtly shocked an outsider who would assume that all hospitals should be clean and no animals running around in such as sensitive area.

e)What time does the shift change for the staff? One would assume that if its 10am, the staff would at least arrived 5minutes before the actual shift starts. But not in the Emergency Room. One important staff was late for more than 20minutes. Who is that VIP staff? The person who wrote and gets the $1 charge!

Without this person, no one would see the doctor since they are not registered yet.

Kalau orang kan mati, mati sudah bah, kalau kan menunggu for this stupid staff - its a bloody disgrace to have someone who have no proper working ethics working in such an important and sensitive area and dont care about the health of the patients. Dont give excuse that its the doctors' job that ensure who gets treatment, most of the time, IN BRUNEI, its always the frontline incompentence who can decide the life and death of a person!

f) It is very disturbing to see that there were so many doctors who were just standing and not seeeing patients. Who are the people in greens and blues??? If they are not doctors, then what the heck are they doing in the Emergency Room? There were so many patients in the Emergency Room and yet there are these people who SEEMED to be just waiting and chatting at the counter.

g) Why is our Govt not spending enough money in giving the nation's hospital proper equipment and services? It was really distressing, dissapointing and outrage to see how the Emergency Room operate. At the back of the mind, one would always think that "no one would survive if they are pushed into the Emergency Room if one have a major injury" and the fact staff and doctors seemed to act like the normal staff - do things slowly... ITs not like ER, Chicago Hope kind of service ... very very far from it.

h) To people higher up, if you're reading this, please do something about our failing health care system. Important issues in health care such as medicines, emergency staff competence in dealing with patients and doctors speciality must be taken into upmost consideration as these are the areas that Brunei needs to improve. This issue is a 20 years old issue, but since there's a new management team already, then they should know or try to solve this problem...

I strongly suggest that all future staff who are working in hospitals be given contracts when working and NOT to accept as permanent staff who cannot be sack. This is to ensure that these type of people knows their important responsibility to the people who seek medical attention and if they CANT or REFUSE to perform as they should, then they can be sack from their job. This is especially true for the person manning the PAYMENT counter! Remember, there are thousands of people who are without jobs in this country, and Im sure they would be glad to fill in the shoes of the person manning the payment counter!

It may not happen to you now, but in future, if it happened to you or any of your close relatives, then you will know the anger and frusturations one have when dealing with the Emergency Service of RIPAS.