For A Hospital, You Aren't Quite Hospitable...

Gee, and you thought that I’m just being catchy by playing around the words ‘hospital’ and ‘hospitable’. Catchy title aside, there is something which I should highlight, and let this be a lesson for improvement. Think of it as a note from a concerned citizen (you guys should be lucky that I did not put this up on ‘Aduan Rakyat’ or something.

Just a quick recap; my dad was admitted for 22 days in a government hospital (which by the end of this note might explain the title). Another thing, the source of this note that I’m about to type would be my mum’s conversation with pretty much all the visitors during CNY (family friends, cousins), so it may be inaccurate someway or another, but it’s the gist that’s important. So it was his last day (I was at work that day, sorry Papa) when the doctor finally gave him the good news, ‘Awak dah boleh balik’ at about 11am, if I’m not mistaken. There are still some paperwork needed to be done, but other than that he’s good to go. So my mum pun start la bersiap-siap, kemas2 all personal belongings of my dad. They then waited at the sofa where they put the TV.

About 12pm or so, my mum mentioned she saw the nurses and the hospital staff started to kemas-kemas my dad’s bed. They then thought, ‘Oh ni dah start kemas2 ni, siap2 untuk org lain nak masuk la ni’. Very efficient indeed. My dad was also served lunch, but then since his bed is already made ‘unavailable’ for him to lepak2, he ended up having lunch by the TV. My mum thought that it won’t take long before everything is all set.

She was wrong.

Come 5pm, she approached the front desk of the ward, asking the status of my dad’s discharge. After some time after being told that you can leave, you wonder if indeed you can leave. The feedback obtained was ‘Pakcik dah boleh keluar, tunggu sekejap ye.’ My dad started to feel uneasy, but still maintaining his cool. You can’t afford to burst into flames if you’re just that weak. So they waited, waited, and waited some more....

Until 8pm, the staffs ended their day shift and the night shift nurses arrived. Again, my mum and dad asked them ‘Boleh keluar ke tak nih?’, adding a more serious tone to it. They receive the same answer, ‘Pakcik tunggu dulu ye’. My dad at that moment got grumpier (for God’s sake, you made him waited for what 8 hours only to settle his discharge papers, it’s only fair that he didn’t burst sooner!)

9pm; it is inevitable. My dad started shouting at the staffs ‘Saya ni boleh keluar ke tak ni?! Kalau tak boleh cakap la tak boleh! Apsal lama sangat ni!’ (I was not there, so I’m not sure of the exact words, which again..not that important). Long story short, after about 9 hours of waiting, barulah all those paperwork settled. Fail la government hospital when it comes to this small2 things. Memang fail abis.

The story does not end there. My dad is still weak to walk on his own, so my mum asked for a wheelchair’ Their response? ‘Boleh pakcik nak pinjam wheelchair, tapi nanti lepas turun, tolong bawak naik balik wheelchair ke tingkat 7 ye’. WHAT THE FUCK? Sorry about the caps lock, but I was just furious about the way they responded. So my sister then terpaksa la push the wheelchair on her own to the 7th floor, while my mum and my dad waited in the car.

Again, I wish to emphasize here, when it comes to the human factor, government hospital memang fail. FAIL ABIS LAH SENANG CERITA!. Upon hearing that story, I can’t help myself but thinking ‘I won’t go to a government hospital for my treatment. I’ll invest in some medical insurance or something, but I’ll want a decent, proper treatment with utmost respect, warmth. For crying out loud, when you’re sick, the last thing you want to have is to have people pissing you off. So, please lah, just because you’re the government hospital does not mean you can treat sick people like crap...Sort out your work process la, sort out your manpower and resources. Don’t let us consumers pay the price of dissatisfaction amongst the staff which leads to the sucky treatments

So yeah, to the staff of Pusat Perubatan Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, on behalf of my papa, I thank you for your hospitality (it is both a sincere thanks and a sarcasm)

Let There Be Light

As I’m listening to a few songs I just downloaded (for quite a few times now), as I am repeating the words over and over again my head, my heart is just intrigued to express something, that I thought I should just write it down...loosely said, it pretty much sums up my thoughts that I need to clear up in the air.

As my brain activity is sorting out my thoughts properly to connect what I’m trying to say, let me just state the obvious first and foremost. These songs share one thing in common; the crazy little thing called love and relationship. As I was in what you called a ‘zaman gelap’, and I’m still currently sorting out my life (relationship wise), I’m still figuring out what’s in stored for me in the future. I’m not trying to be specific of what I’m feeling nor I’m trying to be vague, so here it goes (feel free to not read this, I don’t care).

One song sung by a brilliant band is portraying the message ‘I want you, could it not be any more obvious’ basically. Come what may; silly or erratic arguments, difference in opinion and what not. In the end, when you have that loving feeling to someone, it will not simply fade away, time after time. People may have said that they are moving forward (pinjam tagline Toyota kejap) but when thoughts of that special person came and go like a warm breeze, he or she will be an absolute terrible liar to even consider it as moving forward . I for one will definitely be devastated knowing that the special person I care about are with someone else. Words may not have my strong forte, but I think my actions spoke clearly of my intentions; always have, always will.

Then there are this two new songs, one sung by a WAG, and another, a duet from two reality show contestants. Both talk about the hardships in a relationship, on how love isn’t an everyday picnic or a walk in the park. That it may not go as what we’ve planned, that it may not be rainbows and butterflies. That it will take patience, compromise and trust (not to mention a lot of learning!) to make it work. Sometimes we take things for granted and ended up regretting it when it’s gone. I’m not saying it’s ok to take for granted (just to be clear), but it’s in our genes to sometimes forget what matters. Mistakes are just means of saying that we are indeed human. Everyone isn’t perfect, but together we can achieve a balance stronger than anything. If something’s worth having, it is definitely worth fighting for.

Lastly is a song recommended for download by a family member. I was not excited about the music, but then when I listened to the words carefully, I thought ‘man she’s right’. Love doesn’t come cheap. You have to earn love. You got to go what you got to do. Let her know that you’re really serious about...you know, getting serious with her. I was especially shocked when I heard one of the verses in the song ‘What you gonna do if someone convinces me, to believe that he can do it better’, and I asked myself that very same question. I’ve got no answer to put it in words, but my heart saddens to even have a thought about that...I sincerely hope that I will never have to find out the answer to that question...

Whatever happens happened, which I think has a reason. It has been written. I may have done mistakes which I’m not proud of. I may have done things which I shouldn’t. I may be wrong, I may be right for my actions. This might also be a wake up call for me, to get things straightened out before it’s too late...In the end, I only hope and pray for one thing. Whatever it is that I’m embarking on, whatever signals being transmitted and vice versa, please...let there be light on the other side of the tunnel. I’m not putting my hopes up just yet, but yeah...let there be light...it’s just not cool anymore to be in the dark...

I hope I’m being vague enough. I may have used the wrong words and phrases, and my sentences may jumble up and sounded silly or wrong, and I apologize should this post came out offensive...oh btw, the songs I listened too were ‘Just Say Yes’, ‘Fight For This Love’, ‘The Art Of Love’, and ‘Put It In A Love Song’ (great songs btw, not to be listened during unstable mental state or an emotional meltdown). Till the next post, mm-kayy..

Apparently Sometimes You Got Discredited For Being Too Good...Geeee

To those who are unaware of my whereabouts, I was in Kota Kinabalu last week for a conference on Maintenance Management System. The setting could not be any better; awesome place to visit, huge hotel room (minus the lousy view for the room that I got, unlike some other people I know who managed to get the one with sea view!), great and fun atmosphere, warm company, etc2.

Anyway, throughout the 2 day conference there was a session whereby OPUs (operating units) presented their so called 'best practices' with hope that it could be adopted and practiced elsewhere. While some presentations are quite interesting, some of them...not so much. I would rather consider them as 'good practices'. The ideas are OK, doable..for me it just doesn't have that 'wowww, that's just awesome, I can't believe I didn't think of that' factor. Our reliability manager, one of the delegates from our side, presented our best practice on preventive maintenance compliance. Nothing special or out of the ordinary, just yet to be practiced by others (at least that is what I've been told, kalau salah tu salah la kan)

Long story short, there was an award for the best presentation, and we didn't win. Well, sad aside, we accepted our defeat (cewahh)..maybe next year luck will be on our side. Of course after that we were discussing on why we didn't win, so on and so forth...well in the end, so be it, right?

Today I received a mail from the reliability manager asking for feedbacks from all managers and end users regarding the best practice. And get this, he said that based on the feedback received by the Engineering Managers Panel (basically the head of engineering from all OPUs, of whom became the judge for the presentations), apparently our best practice was too advance for other OPUs. TOO ADVANCE! (pardon the uppercase). It took me a while to digest this before I came to realization. So apparently we got punished and discredited for being too good in what we do? Is that the reason why we did not win the presentation? We ran too fast when others might just started walking?

Gee, apparently you do learn something new in life everyday...