PRIVATE HOSPITALS - "AH LONG" IN WHITE

Private hospitals are not places where one can find the compassion of Florence Nightingale without the lubrication of the mighty mammon, in this case the Ringgit. When you are paying $250 and above for a nite to recuperate it's as good a place to be in. Buzz the nurse the 3rd time and "pronto" she will appear with a smile. Try that in a $130 room and the 80/20 rule comes into play - 80% glare, 20% care.
I was hospitalized just last month and I discovered this unwritten golden rule of how private hospitals ensures their own health, monetary wise. You rush to an emergency room, whilst the doctor checks on you, the nurse comes in and tells you to cough up $2,200 before admission. Here I am with my pants half drawn to my knees and in pain, a most vulnerable and delicate position. Immediate reaction...Please swipe my credit card!. Two days latter and after one MRI scan, one ultra sound screening and a couple of times being zapped with the X ray machine, I am sitting on my bed at 10am in an "open back with nothing underneath operation gown" waiting for my stomach endoscopy. A nurse appears, smiles and request a top up of $2,500. "Oh sure, no problem" I reply "but only after the endoscopy is done". 2 hours and 45 minutes passes by and I have been on "puasa nil by mouth " for almost 15 hours. The same nurse reappears the 4th time with the same request "$2,500". Smelling conspiracy, I surrender my credit card. A coincidence or what! 15 minutes latter I am in the endoscope room - the last patient for the morning and almost an hour latter, I am back in my bed.
If you should be unfortunate enough to be taken to these private pirates in an emergency where no one knows your name,you would probably end up like this bloke who kicked the bucket while the hospital waits for payment before the treatment.

Have a heart for the poor, urges Koay
Link : The Star

PRIVATE hospitals should have compassion for the poor even in their pursuit to make profits from their operations.

Penang State Public Works, Utilities and Transportation Committee chairman Datuk Koay Kar Huah said private hospitals should have a special programme for providing cheaper medical packages for the poor.

He commended the efforts being made by Gleneagles Medical Centre which have so far conducted 300 free heart operations on poor children.

The operations were made possible with the close co-operation among the hospital, the public and the state government.

“I’m inspired by the centre’s good deed,” he said in his speech during a visit to the hospital.

Koay was accompanying Yang di-Pertua Negri Tun Abdul Rahman Abbas who visited the hospital in conjunction with the recent Mer-deka celebration.

Also present were Toh Puan Majimor Sharif, chairman of Wong Keng Fei Children Medical Fund Datuk Michael Chong and the hospital’s consultant paediatrician and paediatric cardiologist Dr Sim Joo Seng.