Police Stories

Police Stories

Police Story I

“Next patient please..” I barked, instructing the clinic nurse to call for the next patient waiting in line.

I was the locum doctor at a busy general practice clinic. I glanced at the name on the patient’s card. It looked and sounded familiar. Maybe it was just a common name, I thought.

The patient entered. She froze in her steps. I was equally surprised.
She almost wanted to turn back and head for the exit.

Aminah (not her real name) was a staff nurse in the ICU. I didn’t know her personally but I remember her as one who was cooperative and diligent in her work. Why was she seeking consultation in a private clinic when she can receive free and immediate consultation every day in the hospital?

Aminah came with her husband, a Corporal with the Royal Malaysian Police Force in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah. The couple has two children.

Two weeks earlier, Aminah was sent for yet another kursus kerajaan away from town. Over the last two days, she had developed foul-smelling vaginal discharge associated with severe itch and discomfort. She questioned her cop husband who after much pressure, admitted to a weekend of uninhibited and unprotected sex with some cheap Filipinos guest relations officers (GROs) while Aminah was away.

She was outraged, he was remorseful.

He declared vehemently that he loved his wife, but the peer pressure was just too great. All his colleagues were doing it, he was just following the crowd. She was too embarrassed to seek treatment among colleagues and doctors in the hospital. Above all, she was worried that if her HIV screen returned positive, she lose her job and be stigmatized by everyone else.

I gave the appropriate treatment for both husband and wife, which included much marital counseling as though I was very experienced in marital disputes. I took the necessary blood samples. I never knew the results.

Sometimes ignorance is bliss.

Police Story II

I glanced at the young lady in front of me. She was scheduled for surgery the next morning for a suspicious breast lump.

Something about her triggered my intuition.

Apart from being a little flushed, she looked perfectly normal. She had some horrible-looking, self-encrypted tattoos on her left wrist but then again, so do many Sabahans, Filipinos and Indonesians too.

There were three active kids sauntering around her bed, and a well-built man donning a Machester United cap. Sarah (pseudonym) obviously had some family support. She did not look happy though. In fact, she looked withdrawn and fearful.

I introduced myself and we exchanged greetings.

Sarah hailed from Lawas, Sarawak, a town 200 km from Kota Kinabalu bordering Kalimantan Indonesia. She had had the breast lump for over a year. She has bigger problems than the breast lump though.

She was HIV positive.

Her husband is a police officer stationed at the Sarawak-Sabah-Indonesian border. The weekends have been slow for him. Away from the wife for days at a time, he had resorted to paid sex in order to satisfy his bodily desires. His lowly salary permitted this pleasure especially since the Indonesian ladies at the border do not cost too much. When he returned home to his wife, he promptly transmitted the deadly virus to his lady.

Sarah was only found to be HIV positive during her third pregnancy. She had to deliver the child via elective Caesarean section as per clinical recommendations.

Her cop husband was on highly active anti-retroviral therapy (HAART), a fancy name for the armamentarium of anti-HIV drugs.

Sarah was not, however. Her husband thought she was “still well” and did not require therapy yet.

Her children’s statuses are still indeterminate.

Police Story III

Dayang was admitted at 12 am one Friday morning. She was unconscious by a roadside in Kota Kinabalu.

There were no identification documents upon her so the medical staff just named her Dayang, a common family name in Sabah.

When she was discovered by a concerned passer-by, she was pale as sago and bleeding from her private parts.

We took the necessary blood tests and transfused her.

Her tests came back positive for hepatitis B, hepatitis C, syphilis and HIV.

We tried to get some information from her when she was better. It was an effort in vain.

She was mute, deaf and possibly mentally challenged. Despite being in a foreign place surrounded by menacing medical staff, she was calm and cooperative at all times.

This was a soul, a child, capable of no harm to any man, animal or plant.

Someone or some people, or many people must have repeatedly assaulted her sexually in the past.

She absconded from the wards a week later. We searched the hospital but she was nowhere to be found.

We reported to the hospital’s police counter. They told me that they were busy controlling traffic and were unable to attend to our complaint at that time. I was advised to lodge a report at the next nearest police station.

I did as I was told, leaving behind my forty other patients to lodge a missing persons report from someone with no name, no age, no known family members but a basket of infective diseases.

The receiving officer told me he will accept the report, but that was it. He will not be searching for a pale-looking, frail-bodied young lady in unmistakable hospital clothes roaming on the streets by foot. I remarked that the missing patient was in danger of being sexually assaulted again and was simultaneously a danger to other people in view of her multiple partially treated infections.

The officer remained indifferent, making some snide remarks that she was probably a prostitute and better off unfound.

Sarah was never seen again, at least not in the hospital grounds.

There are great police stories like the ones starring Jackie Chan.

The ones I’m writing about do not, but they are great in their own ways.

I am quite sure there are some good cops out there within Polis Diraja Malaysia.

Somehow, I seem to meet many bad ones.

The ones who solicit duit kopi in return for being let off a traffic offence – they are aplenty and ubiquituous.

The ones who seize illegal DVDs only to enjoy them with their children – they are the most brazen and unperturbed by public opinion.

The ones who patronized sex workers when they are supposed to be clamping down on them – these cops destroy their own family inasmuch as they are permitting the prostitutes to destroy the families of others.

The cops who are in cahoots with underground kingpins – these are probably true allegations for we see so many Malaysian policemen living beyond the means of their official salary.

Should we blame the cops for being corrupted? Sometimes yes, sometimes no – I can’t always fault these fathers for being unmotivated in their work when they risk their lives everyday while drawing a kacang putih salary.

Still, it all simply doesn’t add up.

Most cops in Malaysia are bumiputeras, and all bumiputeras are beneficiaries of the NEP to a certain extent. They may not receive the mega-contracts and super-tenders but all of them do receive a leg-up compared to non-bumis.

They claim to draw a tiny salary and continuously claim that they are in need of the NEP.

Fair enough, but for what?

So that they can save part of their salary to screw cheap foreign workers?

We need the IPCMC now!