Overdose of paracetamol killed a boy?

Two 500mg paracetamol tablets to be taken four times daily were prescribed to a 7-year old boy and were reportedly causing his death? We know that paracetamol, although it is an over the counter medication, should not be taken excessively even for adults but how could such a high dosage prescribed to a seven-year old boy?

When I was watching a Taiwanese TV host show last night, coincidentally, it was talking about the issue of the “angpow” culture or the corruption practices in one of the government-run hospital in Taiwan. It seemed that the doctors of a public hospital were found to be accepting bribes from the suppliers or medicine companies and so on. There were also various substandard incidents or malpractices highlighted at the talk show. In one of the instance highlighted, the operation theater of one the famous state-owned hospital in Taipei was reportedly caught fire while surgery operation was in progress causing the death of a patient who was undergoing the operation. Worst still, the fire alarm system was not working properly despite routine inspections. There were many more malpractices pointed out including negligence of doctors or nurses such as over dosage or wrong prescriptions of medicine causing injury or damage to the patients which were all covered up by the hospital administrations.

It seems that medical negligence is nothing new nowadays, but why it happens mostly in state-owned or government hospitals where most of the people from lower income group seek treatment? Does it mean that one can only get good medical treatment if he can afford to pay high medical fee while lower income groups will have to settle for sub-standard medical treatment in public hospitals?

Swine flu, a potential threat

As though the current global financial crisis is not bad enough, another catastrophe is potentially occurring, similar to that of SARS which struck the world some years ago, leading to bad implications on human life throughout the world. As it is, Canada has recently confirmed there are 6 cases of swine infection, and there were already 103 life casualties in Mexico. Some experts suggest that the current infestation of H1N1 is not likely to be as severe as H1N5 in 2003 but precautionary measures must be taken by the relevant authorities especially to inspect all foreign visitors coming in as well as people travelling from infected countries so as to avoid a probable spreading of the deadly virus into our country. On the other hand, the pig farmers should be better prepared for the screening of the pigs and informing the relevant authorities promptly should there be any suspected disease incidents.

This is something that we cannot afford to take it lightly, as it could be a matter of life and dead. Financial crisis can recover, even though it may take a long and hard journey, but epidemic may take away someone you love, ending up whole life regret. With the lessons learned from the outbreak of SARS and Nipah virus, it is hoped that the government can be better prepared to carry out sufficient preventive measures so that the epidemic would not spread into our shore.

Good effort by the health ministry to screen through all passengers disambarking from probable swine flu infected countries

Patriotism or just another political gimmick?

The new menteri besar of Perak is certainly too eager to show off his patriotism. Just about two months after the previous state government of Perak under Pakatan Rakyat purchased 14 units of Toyota Camry as the official cars for members of state exco, Dr Zambry decided to revert back to Proton Perdana as the official cars and thus, the Toyotas are out for sale.

The previous administration quoted high maintenance costs of Proton Perdana as the reason they decided to use non-national cars instead but for the new state government, they think that national pride is above all other practical or cost considerations and thus, tax payers have to live with their money being wasted again for another political gimmick.

Eli, resign-lah

When Eli Wong went on sabbatical leave some two months ago due to the embarrassing nude photos, I left a massage in her blog leaving some words of encouragement but more importantly, asking her to accept her fate and resign from all posts that she held. I hate by-election for it would cost taxpayers’ money unnecessarily. But, in the case of Eli Wong, is there any other better ways to resolve this untoward incident? Chua Sok Lek resigned. Even though he won the second post in MCA election, he was not made the minister. Eventually, he will be sidelined, grassroots’ support or not, let’s accept the reality. You are innocent until proven guilty. For Chua, when he was caught in AV action video clip, he should know that he could not turn back the clock.

There are a lot more people, politicians especially, which could be even worse than we could possibly imagined, but until proven guilty, they are innocent. But for Eli, she may say that she was the victim of the circumstances, her privacy was invaded, and she was betrayed by her ex-lover. That all we understand. But when you are caught pants down, guilty or not, privacy invaded or not, a setup or not, accept the fate, just leave and the world will forget the incident eventually. But if one tries to fight against the tide, he or she must be psychologically prepared; it is a dog world out there, if you have weakness for your enemies to exploit, why should you think that they would not use it conveniently?

Exactly as Eli Wong resumed her state government post after two months of sabbatical leave, more nude pictures of her have resurfaced recently.

Let’s go to the zoo

I like to go to the zoo when I have some free time. Sometime, I just like to see animals more than people. Security is so bad of late, mat rempit assaults, students got raped, these sort of bad news don’t seem to stop appearing everyday when I flip through the newspaper. I wonder what the police are busy about. Too busy for the by-elections I supposed, the Star reported recently that the 5 by-elections carried out recently have cost the taxpayers some 33 million ringgit. That is a lot of money, and the money spent by the Police force was a whooping RM 31 million. The money was reportedly paid for temporary bases and tents, logistics and transportation, rental, electricity and outstation allowances.

These by-elections, except for those needed due to the decease of the Member of Parliament, are unnecessary as they are draining our resources and money. The politicians seem unworried about that. Just as we have seen the three by-elections concluded in April 7, another joker tenders resignation to give way to another by-election. How much is this one going to cost us?

Remember the TV commercial many years ago promoting people visiting zoo? The theme song goes like this, “let’s go to the zoo, a lot of things to do…..” So, why not just bring your family and go to zoo so that you can momentarily forget about the ugly politicians putting up so many sandiwara and the bad news on mat rempit assaults, rape or murder cases and so on. Looking at the animals, you will know how ugly and complicated the Homo sapiens are. Animals are simple, they only think about their stomachs and nothing else. Just like the predators preying upon other animals, you won’t think anything wrong with that. That’s nature, as Charles Darwin said, survivor of the fittest, just that Homo sapiens always go beyond that.

These two eagles were fighthing when I managed to take the picture. They could be mating, I'm not sure, but the bottom one certainly were crying as though it was in great pain, or great enjoyment, I'm not sure.

Innovator or cheater?

The International court of appeal have ruled that the diffusers installed in Brawn GP, Toyota and Williams cars comply with the regulations and thus, allowing the three teams to keep the points scored in the past two races. It has been an interesting season this year for F1 especially when strong teams like Ferrari and McLaren Mercedes were shockingly slow in the speed as compared to Brawn, Toyota and Williams due to the disputed design on the diffuser. Those buggers in Ferrari and McLaren simply cannot accept that their cars are not competitive enough as compared to the “backbenchers”.

Then, they started to question the legality of their opponents’ cars not complying with the regulations and try to have the points earned by Brawn and the rest striped off. They failed ultimately when the court of appeal ruled in favour of the innovation made on the diffuser by Brawn, Toyota and Williams. As Brawn said earlier, Formula 1 is all about innovative designs, who ever master the technology will step up the podiums. It looks like Ferrari and Cos simply could not stomach the fact that their weaker opponents have outperformed them in terms of innovations. That is quite common, isn’t it? A person or a team or a political party or any organization with long supremacy in their own realm will not accept open-heartedly the defeats to the weaker opponents, especially when they are financially much stronger than their opponents. I supposed such thing also happened in our own backyard, look at the court case going on in the legality of Perak state government.

In any sorts of competition, be it sports, elections, games or whatever, when you win, you shall win humbly, when you lose, you lose with dignity. Then, there will be mutual respect among the competing members and that is what sporting is all about.

Bukit Gantang Chinese no appreciation of BN?

Muhyiddin Yasin was appointed to champion the two by-elections in Bukit Gantang and Bukit Selambau. As you know, BN lost in both by-elections. Instead of carrying out a thorough post mortem to determine why BN lost in both by-elections, Muhyiddin is blaming the Chinese in Bukit Gantang for being appreciative of what BN have done. Well, in the first place, what have BN done? They wrested the Perak state government from Pakatan Rakyat by pinching their three state representatives, then they blamed the former Mentri Besar for not respectful to the Sultan. What else? Oh lastly, they promise the people in Bukit Gantang this and that allocations just before the by-election. And they expect people from Bukit Gantang to buy that. He must be joking.

Well, I propose that one of the KPIs for the ministers should be finding a better excuse for their own failures. The next KPI should be stop finger-pointing when they fail to deliver something.

Bangkok under siege

The cancellation of Asian Summit held in Pattaya, Thailand due to the political unrest is really a shame to the Thai nation as a whole. In subsequent to that, the red-shirted supporters of the ousted Prime Minister Thaksin stormed into the government offices in Bangkok on Monday morning causing even more critical conditions. The business activities in the capital city of Bangkok will certainly come to a halt due the on-going protests. Most countries have issued travel advisory to Bangkok amidst the season normally see a lot of visitors from all corners of the world visiting Thailand to celebrate the infamous Loy Krathong.

Prime Minister Abhisit has certainly under-estimated the supporters of Thaksin. All the money and resources put into to organize the Asian Summit is wasted but more pitifully, the image of Thailand is severely tarnished, as leaders of the participating countries were so hastily evacuated when the protesters invaded the venue of the summit. The Asian Summit was supposedly set to enhance the image of the country but was indeed backfired beyond the anticipation of the Thai government. What we hope is that the Thai government is not resort to using force on the red-shirted supporters of Thaksin, otherwise, another incident of Tiananmen is potentially recurring and that would certainly be a black dot in the history of Thai, a peace-loving country. Perhaps it is time for the well respected King Bhumibol to restore peace and normalcy in Thai before it becomes beyond control.

The people of Thai as well as all others around the world are suffering badly due to the global financial crisis. Why must we see more blood shedding at this time when we should join hands to weather through the economic thunder storms?

Bangkok, a war zone?

KPI? Work or not, Mr Prime Minister?

Koh Tsu Koon is appointed a Senator then becomes the Minister in the Prime Minister in-charge of monitoring the performance of other ministers. Often we heard that KPIs or key performance index is used as a yardstick to measure the performance of an organization, be it business entities or government departments. Having been working in a GLC for the past 10 years, I’m really sick of all these KPI things but have to do it faithfully year after year as it would affect every aspect of your career, your increment, bonus, promotion and so no.

To manage KPIs itself is very time consuming. When I say to manage, basically mean to prepare the KPIs at the beginning of a financial year, mid-year review and final year assessment all these take a lot of time so much so that you have to put everything else aside just to concentrate on preparing, updating and finalizing your KPIs. Your bosses will need evident to support your KPIs apart from the figures, you will have prepare the supporting documents. A lot of paper works and finally, you would realize that your documentation and other papers pertaining to your KPIs will be as thick as a PhD thesis. But at the end, your bosses will tell you that your bonus and increment is not solely hinge upon your own performance, it will depend on the performance of the company as a whole, your department and so no. Put it in other words, bonus and increment is the sole discretion of the company and don’t ever question it. Full stop.

Coming back to Mr Prime Minister using the KPIs to measure the performance of his ministers, there is nothing wrong with that. But he has to make sure that his chieftains are serious about the livelihood of the people and not their own pockets. The political lifespan of the ministers is all depended on many factors. Not many politicians can be as long life as Dr M in terms of political career. The KPIs for the minister are for short term, but the donkey policies made by a lousy minister will affect the people for their whole life. Look at the currently heated topic on the teaching of science and math in English and you will know what I’m referring to.

New cabinet line-up, anything to do with you and me?

I was on my way out from Bongaya Forest Reserve on yesterday evening along with a young businessman after visiting his newly opened plantation. The place is about 200 km plus from Sandakan, quite remote and there was no phone line over there. The moment we reached the Sapi-Nangon road where there was mobile phone services, the mobile phone of this young businessman started ringing continuously. It seemed that his staff/friends/business partners and so on kept calling to update him with the announcement on the new cabinet line-up. He seemed to be very excited as his “boss” was moving up to take over a more powerful ministry in-charge of national security, ISA and blah-blah-blah. I asked him what happened to KJ, he said nothing for him. He then started calling his so-called “boss” aides to offer congratulations.

The journey was long to Sandakan from Bongaya. It takes about 4 hours not because of the distance but rather the poor and winding road especially the jungle track that do not allow speeding. After making almost 20 over 30 calls plus many SMSes, our friend said that he felt dizzy. I jokingly told him that he might as well shut down the mobile phone so that he could have some rests. He told me that he couldn’t do so as he must congratulate his big bosses as quickly as possible.

Common people like you and me concern on the new cabinet line-up as what we want is a clean and efficient government to steer us out from the economic turmoil. The businessmen are nonetheless more concerned on whether their “Bosses” are moving to which ministry and whether they can benefit anything from the positions hold by the politicians they supported. Just accept it, there is the presence of nepotism and cronyism no matter how the big shots in the government try to deny it.

P/S I took this photo while I was in a plantation in Telupid, don't you think the trees growing side by side look like a couple?

Won a River, Lost Two Mountains

I find the above headline in China Press very interesting and somehow reflective of the results from the just concluded three by-elections. BN retained Batang Ai, thus they have won a river, as Batang means a river. And they have lost in Bukit Gantang and Bukit Selambau, Bukit means hill or mountain, thus two mountains gone. It was the status quo anyway; the respective parties retained the seats formerly held by them. However, the magnitude of a river vesus two mountains should not be overlooked. Obviously, the people in Bukit Selambau and Bukit Gantang didn’t bother about the so-called “feel good factors” as mentioned by Muhiddin Yasin who was the chief-de-mission for the Barisan Nasional by-election machinery. Not even the once highly respected former Prime Minister who played so many tricks to oust Pak Lah, can salvage BN in Bukit Selambau and Bukit Gantang.

If you follow TV1 live telecast on the by-elections, you will see how the government makes use of their resources particularly their control on television to play up the racial sentiments. The guest speakers said that Chinese voters in Bukit Gantang were largely influenced by the sentiments cooked up by the opposition, the defunct-Pakatan Rakyat government in Perak. They said Nizar was betrayal to the Sultan of Perak and didn’t deserve to represent the people in Bukit Gantang. These political analysts are not genuine political analyst, they take too much side and could not give any neutral views to the people. But what important is that the people in Bukit Gantang and Bukit Selambau are wise enough to make their own decisions irrespective of the sentiments cooked up by Barisan Nasional. The people in Bukit Gantang have indicated that they didn’t agree with the dirty tricks played by the former-opposition to topple the Pakatan Rakyat-led state government.

The race ethnicity in Bukit Gantang closely represents the racial composition in Malaysia where 64% is Malay, 27% Chinese and 9% Indian. It was estimated that 70% of Chinese voted for Nizar, a 5% more as compared to the 2008 general election. At the same time, Nizar is also getting more support from the Malay and Indian leading a higher majority as compared to the previous election. Barisan Nasional is still in denial of the rejection of the majority of people to their government especially in Bukit Gantang. They try to play down the losses suffered by them in Bukit Gantang and Bukit Selambau. Many political analysts opined that the outcome of the by-elections should not be viewed as the referendum to the leadership of Najib as he just took over not even a month. Fair enough, but it certainly indicates increased acceptance of the people on the new alliance of PAS-DAP-PKR as a probable alternative to replace Barisan Nasional.

Torrential Rain Wrecked Havoc

The F1 race in Sepang was going on well until half way through the torrential rain wrecked havoc and causing the race to be suspended. It was extremely dangerous racing under the heavy downpour especially in Malaysia, the lightning could be very scary. The drivers seemed reluctant to restart the race, Mark Webber, Alonso and a few others were not hoping to restart the race when interviewed by the commentator due to too much of water on the road surface and poor visibility.

My house is about 40km from Sepang. It was raining heavily when the race was suspended with 24 or 25 laps to go. It was not even safe for normal driving under torrential downpour what more racing. Poor visibility and lack of grip can potentially be fatal to the drivers.What a disappointment, the race went on well at the beginning with plentiful of overtaking involving Timo Glock, Ruben, Nico Rosberg, Alonso, Jenson, Trulli and Mark Webber. Good thing is no serious accident happened; all the drivers were safe and sound despite some skidding off. As at 6.30 pm local time, the race was still suspended and no sign that it will be restarted.

It looks like Jenson is going to win his successive victory. Well done, London boy.

Come on-lah, Khir, find better excuse

Now only we know that Selangor, under the previous state administration, intended to build a theme park in Bagan Lalang. This theme park was designed supposedly to be as large as Disneyland in Paris or Florida. That’s why technical trips were made to Paris and Florida so that some feasibility studies could be made. Those technical visits cost the tax payers some 1.7 million Ringgit. And those technical visits were attended not by relevant technical experts but family members of the former Menteri Besar of Selangor including his wife and sons. There were no official meetings with the Disney official during the technical visits what so ever. That make sense or not?

Any wrongdoings would depend on whether there is sufficient evident to prove it guilty or otherwise. But do you think there will be any evident left behind? Remember during the previous General Election in 2008 when someone were reportedly crying while burning away some document papers in the official residence and office. Any evident left behind, you guess.At least the present Menteri Besar bought the cattle, slaughtered them and distributed to the poor and people in need.

Come on-lah, Khir, find better excuses.

Polls on 3 by-Elections by Sinchew

Sinchew on-line recently conducted a poll for 3 by election to be carried out concurrently in April, 2009 for Bukit Selambau, Bukit Gantang and Batang Ai. Guess what. 86% of the voters think that Keadilan will win in Bukit Selambau, 91% think Pas will win in Bukit Gantang and 88% think Keadilan win the Batang Ai by-election. Interesting huh? It seems Chinese readers are pro-oppositions, be it Keadilan or Pas. What happen to Barisan Nasional then, if they could not get the support of the Chinese voters?

Of course the polls may not represent anything. It merely comprises of a couple of thousand of newspaper readers who took part in the on-line polls that mean the result is only a reflection of their preferences. But the sentiment of anti government is very clear cut. Majority of the Chinese don’t seem to like Barisan Nasional, or shall I say, they dislike the government? That sentiment was the major driving force leading to the political tsunami occurred during the 308 General Election. And until now, approximately one year later, the anti-government sentiments don’t seem to go away. With one year gone by, what have the government done to win back the support of the Chinese voters?

Pak Lah is stepping down seemingly taking responsibility of the biggest loss suffered by Barisan Nasional since independent. But is that enough? Those buggers other than Pak Lah in Barisan Naional, are they not doing anything. What I know is that some of the political veterans are still praying hard that the 6th Prime Minister will keep them as a minister or deputy minister or whatever high government posts. One of the very old veterans could still win his party election unopposed, what the heck. It seems that everybody tries to pass the buck to Pak Lah. There is no collective responsibility; this is the politic in this country. Good luck to us all in Malaysia. I wish you happy retirement Pak Lah. I respect you more than those buggers who hailed you like a god when you were in power and immediately asked for your resignation after 308.