We have not posted anything in the past 2 months, not because of reasons circulating around. We wanted to wait and see if there are any changes during this time. We felt that this comment raises a few important issues. There were lots of replies to the comments so best if we discussed this further here.
By brucelee
As the new DGMS has taken over, we want to bring to her office’s attention the nepotism practice by the previous inefficient administrator. By the way, we are all elated to see the back of ex DGMS!
The first issue we want to bring up is the way the postgraduate committee was formed. The committee members were chosen by the ex DGMS and consist of his cronies who are mainly interested in promoting themselves.
They did not do anything to expedite the promotions of other local doctors nor do they provide assistance with our training. To clarify our statement, how come one of its members has been promoted to M19 without having undergone proper training herself?
We know for a fact she went to Singapore as a fellow, did not register herself for specialist training and did not do on calls and rotations while there. She spent her time outside Singapore attending overseas meetings.
Why is she being considered as a Senior Specialist in Brunei when she would only be considered as an associate Specialist in Singapore?? This has happened because she has promoted her substandard qualification despite not having enough experience. We hope the new administration will not do the same mistake and all these people have to be promoted only by local assessments after a few years of experience.
Now, who is she to decide on our future training (us junior doctors) when she herself did not undergo proper postgraduate training? We refuse to have her in the postgraduate committee to decide on our training.
We want to talk about the other member who is the right hand person for our old administrator. She calls herself the coordinator. She is the one who reluctantly returned to Brunei after decades of overseas stay spending government’s money. She never worked in Brunei as a junior doctor and she too is involved in deciding our future? Let the senior doctors who have spent their time in Brunei decide!
She spends more of her time at Ministry and UBD than RIPAS, where she is supposed to look after her patients. Now she is bringing the new scheme for assessment of junior doctors’ training. It’s high time we form a committee to assess his ex cronies who spend their time to promote themselves and decide on our lives. Let us now have 360 degrees assessment on all these cronies.
The second issue is the recent spate of promotions given to ex DGMS’s cronies which was secretly organised as he probably knew he was on the way out! We don’t know whether the 3 month trained Specialist has been promoted too? We are certain she was included, appointment via pillow talk.
It’s time we revamp the present system and postgraduate training committee. Promotions should be given on merits and everyone should have equal opportunities.
We are pleased to have Dr Hjh Norlila as our new DGMS. We hope she will get rid of all these favoritism practice.
Some of points it raises are:
- There is a new DGMS
- Another assessment on how some people can get promoted without proper training.
- How powerful a favourite can become, especially if the boss relies to much on them.
- A lot of decisions we made by one group of people with their own agendas.
To follow our own advice on the last point, please give us your comment on this.
9 Comments
I am saddened to see our beloved DGMS leave. He is such an inspirational figure for all of us local doctors. I was hoping before this to become one of his cronies hiding in his office, but…well, sudah tah people…we miss a good honest man here people…
I agree with brucelee. The ’sweet’ (tia karang) M19 person atu is definitely one of orang kanan si EX-dgms. Sometimes I wonder how moh promote someone to become specialist. Has anyone scrutinise her ‘illustrious’ training in singapore ? Is anyone aware of her rajin work attitude ? And, has anyone find out any truth in the rumour that when she went to some sponsored conferences, her other half got sponsored along too ?
The comment about substandard qualification is not too far from the truth. Do you know how much (or how little) she did for her training in Singapore? If what she did there is good enough to become specialist, well, why bother learning hard and going for exams, just follow what she did. Nah. Is it too much for a fair system in moh ? Dream on. Meow.
Let’s all move on. The previous DGMS is gone and there is a new lady sitting in the office. Most people do not like the former nor will they like the present one. We must understand the limitation they have. They can only do so much and I know they both work til their limit.
The previous one was a good man. He arranged for training for us juniors. He arranged for us to go for exam. He planted an apple tree for us and all we had to do was to climb up the tree to pluck the apple. If in the UK, we would have to find a land to plant the tree in the first place. A simple analogy. You don’t need a MBBS to understand it.
The present one is also working like mad to help us. Pls understand everyone has his or her limitation. :et’s work together and help the DGMS help us.
Well, well….enjoying being spoonfed which explains why the locals doctors unsure of their true worth. Arranged limited training, qualified without competition, less experienced from their peers, then home to be paid as clinical specialists doing administrative work. Leave the work to junior doctors or even foreign staffs who easily fell prey to blames when anyting goes wrong. Why not allow these enthusiastic doctors to go & find their own training without this bonding business holding them back & without the penalty of being barred to rejoin the Gov’t civil service again in the future after they have completed their training? Would’t that be better? DGMS or MOH should consider proposing this to the Public Service Commission? It probably will bring properly trained, adequately experienced, genuinely dedicated,less power crazed specialists back to serve this country.
Wake up guys!!!!!!!!
What incentives are there to stay in moh. Look at all those senior people local doctors, where are they now? Some even go to another ministry and make his name there. Some left for private. Some even absconded. Let’s just face it. There is nothing nice about working in moh.
Spongebob is right, sometimes if you’re on-call, it’s so easy for people to blame if things go wrong. But where is the teaching and support ? It doesn’t help if some of these ‘local specialists’ are so hard to find – not only during oncalls, but during office hours too…er hhemmm!. Blairwitch cat..I can agree with your points too. That one should know where she sits. Once a Prof tell me, if you don’t know something, just shut up and admit it, go home AND read kumar and clarke.
Jimmy, cultivating a sense of pride and commitment in our profession is not as simple as..what was it you said? planting an apple tree (you don’t need gardening course on that).
He was a doctor like us all. But his priority has always been on a certain type of patients – if they barely even made a step in the hospital, then he would appear out of thin air, day or night, or dawn, and sekali everyone kena criticised, and quick-quick-quick, boom. Just ask around.
Look at the ‘apple tree planter’ himself, what positive thing has he truly done in moh. Gimme one example. Anyone ?
Fact is, nearly all the local doctors and medical students are very disillusioned about the job reality in Brunei. Everywhere they see, people are leaving the services. They heard how inequalities, cronyism/favouritism and nepotism exists, and whoever is left are all drawn-out and bitter. It looks like to get somewhere, just rub er your ‘butter’, on the right side of someone’s er..’bun’, upstairs.
Well, that’s the CME point for you guys today. Go home.
what the previous dgms did was trying TO SAIL HIS OWN SHIP! good honest man?! yeah sure!!
and of course he promoted the cronies who helped him along the way and helped those who rubbed his er ‘balls’?
and we doctors dont need an mbbs to understand that.
there you go another CME point for you guys.
so quiet here ? what is this whole thing of keeping local doctors content and yet posts not confirmed, promotions never materialize & courses not approved, where is this bloody scheme gaji that’s suppose to happen. that was meant to have happened a long time ago, even though it is already in black and white.
Who will leave next ? Try leaving without resigning.
No CME point here boys and girls, Go to Jail, Do not collect ‘promised’ pension.
As Nenek gather round her cucu-cucu, she notices one is missing..”Anon, where are you ?” The rest keep quiet. “Where is he, anyone knows ?”…Quiet. “We are afraid to talk anymore, nenek.., look what happen to him..kena criticised saja…” said a long drawn face. Nervous laughter…
So boys and girls…people up there wanted to know what makes us unhappy and Anon them gave them a heart-felt feedback. Guess no one can stand the truth huh…hehehe…nenek used to go to many of those ‘getting to know you’ events…where powerful men and women were concerned how some of us felt about the service in general. I used to keep a brave face, and said RIPAS is wonderful, we are curing the sick, where routinely we bring back the dead…sometimes even without panadol we can manage. Ah….
“But nenek, we should go to proper channel like they said..shouldn’t we if we feel strongly about it ?”…
Tell me what proper channel is. Letters to people responsible upstairs ? Do you all actually think that this has not been done before ? Or the people there didn’t know ? Hey Voltaren, where’s your useless all-talk hero? See ? The letter go up to some desk, but magically disappear into a blackhole, more like under that already bulging carpet. Either they are too incompetent to deal with it, or they couldn’t be bothered, choose one.
“They told us that we should be thankful because we have one of the best health system in the world..”
Well, best according to what ? That we ‘rid’ of malaria (are you sure ?). That we are not bottom in WHO worldwide list ? The best judge of how good a health service is how your own people think of it. Sometimes it’s not necessary to do ’survey’, ’statistics’..
One of the youngsters shouted..”I heard the CEO and her team are doing great”..
The hospital CEO hold great power. He or she is responsible to the standards of care of that hospital. Do you know she is properly directly responsible to maintain the standards of care (not just beautifying the place with flowers)? So boys and girls, next time something is amissed, perhaps she need to be notified ? ala “proper channel”…boy will she be inundated. Or, would everybody just keep quiet ?
Now go away, nenek is going to claim some ubat. These pharmacists told me to come back again to see if my new stock of ubat has arrived. Gee, how difficult is it to stockpile ubat anyway. Some medications you just know is extremely popular..how come can’t just buy in bulk and store..or wait..ah..budget problems ? Mm..which ranking are we in terms of patient satisfaction with medications supply ?
…bouts of laughters…
I am a frustrated MO working in RIPAS, why are we local doctor treated indifferent from our expatriates doctor? First of all, our pay suck with no benefits compare to our counterpart. The MOH admin treated us as shit, sending us round and round with a simple application. I am not sure why we even ask why do the local doctors left MOH. Come on change now!