Peace Be Unto You.

Delirious?: Majesty (Here I Am)



Here I am humbled by your Majesty,
Covered by your grace so free,
Here I am, knowing I'm a sinful man,
Covered by the blood of the Lamb,

Now I've found the greatest love of all is mine,
Since you laid down your life,
The greatest sacrifice,

Majesty, Majesty!
Your grace has found me just as I am,
Empty handed, but alive in your hands,
Majesty, Majesty,
Forever I am changed by your love,
In the presence of your Majesty,

Here I am humbled by the love that you give,
Forgiven so that I can forgive,
Here I stand, knowing that I'm your desire,
Sanctified by glory and fire,

Now I've found the greatest love of all is mine,
Since you laid down your life,
The greatest sacrifice. And here is the rest of it. Read more!

“Bagus lagi masuk hutan”

I attended to an emergency yesterday.

When things were more calm, an old couple came up to me and enquired about a relative’s whereabouts.

“Doktor, boleh tanya, di mana si Maziah bt Ahmad (not the patient’s real name)?”

I asked a few questions and shortlisted the patient’s possible locations.

“Tunggu ah, saya bantu telefon”

I actually found the patient at first attempt.

The achievement was uncannily more uplifting than reviving a corpse.

“Mari, man, ikut saya..Sekarang masuk Hospital Queen macam masuk hutan, susah mau cari saudara kau.”

“Bagus lagi masuk hutan, doctor. Sekurang-kurangnya di hutan, saya pandai cari jalan,” was his reply.

Sums up the shitty state of healthcare in Sabah doesn’t it? Read more!

An Open Letter to Health Minister II: Rumah Sakit Yang Sakit

Dear Yang Berkhidmat Liow Tiong Lai,

Mr. Wong, an elderly man presented at Hospital Likas because of severe breathlessness and was found to have severe pneumonia on chest x-ray.

He was then admitted to the High Dependency Unit of Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH) 30 minutes away for treatment.

He improved after six days and was then transferred to the normal ward for further recuperation.

A bed was urgently needed one day later and the frail Mr. Wong was then shipped off to Hospital Bukit Padang for ‘rehabilitation’.

Alas, he did not improve but instead deteriorated.

As Hospital Bukit Padang was devoid of the necessary equipment and setup for managing emergencies and ill patients, Mr. Wong was then resent back to QEH for further management.

More tests were required and old Wong was then sent to Sabah Medical Center for a CT scan.

I’m not sure what happened to Mr. Wong thereafter.

Dear Minister,

I hope this short story did not catch you in an awkward moment as the infamous video did to your amorous predecessor.

I hate to interrupt you in the midst of your personal battle for self preservation in the increasingly irrelevant political party called MCA but the healthcare crisis in Sabah has just taken a turn for the worse.

The locals in Sabah refer to hospitals as ‘rumah sakit’ - translated literally to mean a ‘sick house’.

Increasingly, the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, the only tertiary referral center in Sabah is living up her grand title of being a sick house.

Partially shut down since September 2008, the ailing sick house of Sabah has turned critical recently, with worsening cracks and falling tiles and a real threat of frank collapse.

The older blocks nearby were declared unsafe and subsequently evacuated and shut down.

Ill and frail patients were shipped off in a frenzy like unwanted cargo to nearby centers like Hospital Bukit Padang the mental institution, Hospital Likas, and the makeshift hospital of Lingzhi Museum in Kepayan and of course, UMNO’s favourite Sabah Medical Center (SMC).

Mr. Minister of Health,

The formation of the Queen- SMC-Likas-Lingzhi-BukitPadang medical maze has brought total chaos to healthcare services in Sabah.

The docile and unassuming Sabahan patients are constantly playing a wicked game of musical chairs, being transported around from one hospital to another according to their changing healthcare needs.

There is not one single center that can address a patient as a whole.

A lady in labor will be told that she can’t do so in QEH, while a fitting patient are whisked away from Likas to QEH.

A child with a broken limb may go to SMC but the surgery can only be done in Likas.

Elderly Mr. Wong is merely one of many such victims.

Continuity of care is virtually impossible when patients are moved about every few days.

Valuable investigations and data are lost in the process of multiple transfers resulting in costly, repeated tests.

Patients have even died due to the lack of emergency equipment and the deficient setup at the peripheral wards.

You will not hear all these because your little pharaohs in the state health department have done a great job concealing negligence, mismanagement and sheer stupidity.

Medical personnel are suffering in silence too.

Doctors from house officers to specialists are rushing around the five medical centers daily, wasting precious time, fuel and energy in the process of doing so.

Medical officers have been doing eight to fifteen on-calls every month as a result of the increased locations housing the sick.

That is fifteen days away from home and family every month, mind you.

Just in case you forgot we too have young, growing kids to care for.

Absent parents do not make for good family dynamics, won’t you agree?

We are risking our lives each working day wondering if the abandoned tower block will one day collapse upon us and send us to our Maker.

Our comrades serving in Sabah Medical Center are not having it any better.

In spite of the Barisan Nasional’s grandiose publicity buzz over the RM 245 million purchase of Sabah Medical Center, the medical personnel and patients have remained mere squatters in the premises.

The medical staffs are receiving summonses so very too often as a result of limited parking space.

Those of us in surgical disciplines are working till 9 pm on Mondays to Fridays so as to optimize the operating time of our three miserable rented surgical theatres.

In the SMC wards, 4-5 patients are cramped into rooms meant for two as the hospital was built to house a capacity of 150 beds only.


Mr. Minister,

My colleagues and I cordially invite you to come and see the ground situation for yourself without a grand entourage of administrative boot-lickers.

Patients who require hospital admission have to be turned away due to the insufficiency of places.

The inpatients meanwhile are packed like sardines in the current wards, with hardly a metre of space between beds.

The situation is comparable to a Vietnamese refugee camp.

Hospital-acquired infections are the norm rather the exception.

When a patient with tuberculosis coughs his lungs out, everyone in the ward will be inhaling the highly infectious Mycobacterium.

After 50 years of independence, our ill patients who require close observation are still sharing monitors and other equipment between themselves.

Is this the standard of care that Barisan Nasional is according to Najib’s self-proclaimed fixed deposit?

Whatever happened to all the oil money that Sabah has generated for Tanah Melayu over the last 50 years?

So you see, Mr Health Minister, we don’t need more jobless house officers, more empty promises and more tasty slogans like 1Malaysia.

We need 1Hospital and 1HealthMinister who is attuned to the sufferings of the rakyat under his care.

Do and be all that even though Sabah will most likely hand Barisan Nasional another landslide victory come next general election.

With warmest regards,

Product of the System. Read more!

Childhood Dreams And The Reality Of Adulthood II: The Prodigal Grows Up

Thought you had all the answers,
To rest your heart upon,
But something happens,
Don't see it coming now,
You can't stop yourself,
Now you're out there swimming...
In the deep.
In the deep.
- In The Deep, Bird York, 2006

Her last words to me were to take care of him, not to bully him but to look out for him.

My last words to her were unbelievingly bitter and insensitive, uttered with implosive hatred and stupid teenage anger.


The years in our walk of life rush by faster than we know and would allow them to.

We lose the people we love before we’re ready to, and usually at a time and age when we need them the most.

We sincerely want to repay the generosity and kindness we’ve received in life, and yet our struggles with daily survival get in the way.

Before we know it, something happens to the ones we love.

We are left helplessly lost, stuck and stranded in a place far and away.

Life keeps tumbling your heart in circles,
Till you let go,
Till you shed your pride,
And you climb to heaven,
And you throw yourself off,
Now you're out there spinning...
Now you're out there spinning...
In the deep.
In the deep.

It’s yet another sleepless night in the clinic, not because it was busy but because insomnia has trailed me here as well.

I counseled an asthmatic, drained a thigh abscess and reassured and anxious father, among others.

He called me up but I was not free.

The disappointment in his voice was palpable.

I promised to call back and I did so but reached his voice mail instead.

This cycle has been going on for quite a while now.

Our days of swimming and getting sunburn are gone now, the silly drives past funeral parlors at night also.

I won’t forget his tears when I left home to serve needy strangers across the South China Sea.

His phone call on my first day here were desperate pleas to come home.

I’ve saved strangers and relieved much pain here.

I could not mend his betrayed trust though.

What’s the point of saving strangers around you when your own loved ones are in pain and emotional distress?

In the silence,
All your secrets will raise their worried heads,
Well, you can pin yourself back together,
To who you thought you were.
Now you're out there living…
In the deep.
In the deep.

Have I made inroads in my medical career so far?

Yes, and quite certainly too.

Perhaps even to the envy of some senior colleagues.

Am I appreciative of the opportunities I have received in life?

Obviously and so much more reason to fight for social justice and greater equity for the poor and downtrodden.

Do I realize that I am greatly and wonderfully blessed?

Definitely and with great thanksgiving to the Almighty God.

Can I blame anyone anywhere for the mess that I feel I have created?

No, the prodigal has come of age but remains a prodigal still.

To my loved ones whom I left behind, I am truly sorry.

Now you're out there spinning...
Now you're out there swimming...
Now you're out there spinning...
In the deep.
In the deep.
In the deep.
In the deep...


Read more!

Childhood Dreams And The Reality of Adulthood

I haven't seen your face around
Since I was a kid
You're bringing back those memories
Of the things that we did
You're hangin round
And climbing trees
Pretending to fly
D'Yer wanna be a spaceman
And live in the sky

- D'Yer wanna be a spaceman, By Oasis, 1994.

I had a long chat with a colleague yesterday, someone I do not meet regularly or even call up occasionally.

We went through housemanship together where we endured the nags and outbursts so commonplace in obstetrics and gynaecology.

Our paths had hardly crossed since then.

Life is such that there will be those whom we meet everyday but find little in common, and then there are those whom we meet once in ages and still realize we have much that we share in thoughts and views.


“POTS, do you realize that the more we progress in our medical career, the less option we seem to have?” he said.

His statement reminded me of the 1994 hit song by the now-defunct rock band Oasis.

It was also a stark reminder of how far I and We and probably most of us have strayed from our original passion and childhood dreams.

At the height of my STPM exams, I kneeled and prayed and ask God for a shot in medical school.

The enthusiasm of doing missionary work in wretched nations torn by war and strife was burning within me then.

In the final years of medical school, I made grandiose plans to sit for the USMLE, PLAB or AMC exam, or all of them, hoping to make groundbreaking contributions in healthcare and medicine.

Now all I want to do is to make money and provide a comfortable life for my family.


You got how many bills to pay
And how many kids
And you forgot about
The things that we did
The town where we're living
Has made you a man
And all of your dreams
Are washed away in the sand

- D'Yer wanna be a spaceman, 2nd verse, Oasis, 1994.


I looked through some old photo albums of the family not too long ago.

At age 16, my dear father cycled from Batu Gajah to Sitiawan as part of his criteria of attaining the King Scout award.

Last year at age 60, he spent Christmas playing Solitaire on his desktop.

I am sure he has dreams and wishes somewhere deep within him but if he had any, he isn’t expressing them.

I wish he would, because I would do anything to see them come true.

My sister the high achiever can achieve anything she put her heart and mind into.

Somewhere between graduating summa cum laude from university, one rocky marriage and a few tyrant bosses, her dreams of revolutionizing the Malaysian healthcare system from within the system went up in flames.

Out of civil service and with two young children now, she’s content just being a responsible mother and peace-making wife.

Well it's alright
It's alright
Who are you and me to say
What's wrong and what's right
Do you still feel like me
We sit down here
And we shall see
We can talk
And find common ground
And we can just forget
About feeling down
We can just forget
About life in this town.

- D'Yer wanna be a spaceman, Chorus, Oasis, 1994.


My friend from secondary school days, Lee had this to message me the other day:
“Sometimes I feel like giving up on job, God, girl and all.”

It was a message one would never have expected from him, a person more fondly remembered to be the life of the party and a genius in his own rights.

These days, Lee sends me hollow, single-worded replies in SMSes.

I still think he’d one day be a successful paediatrician, but for now he is another dejected soul guessing over the life that could have been if he had left for Singapore after STPM.


It's funny how your dreams

Change as you're growing old
You don't wanna be no spaceman
You just want the gold
All the dream stealers
Are lying in wait
But if you wanna be a spaceman
It's still not too late

- D'Yer wanna be a spaceman, Final Verse, Oasis, 1994.

Someone very dear to me has all but given up her dreams of cruising the open seas and opening a kindergarten.

She spent a large period of her youth caring for an ill mother, and thereafter poured in a tremendous amount of effort rehabilitating patients incapacitate by stroke and Alzheimer’s disease.

Now stricken by endometriosis, she’s spending a great sum just trying to get pregnant.

Her self image has taken a blow, especially when she’s surrounded by baby-bloomers who seem to reproduce so very effortlessly.

Is this what life does to us as we grow up and age?

Maybe this all is all God’s plans – personal tragedies, familial diseases and financial struggles.

If it is, should I then abide by it or swim against the flow just as I have done my whole life?

Well it's alright
And It's alright
Who are you and me to say
What's wrong and what's right
Do you still feel like me
We sit down here
And we shall see
We can talk
And find common ground
And we can just forget
About feeling down
We can just forget
About life in this town.

- D'Yer wanna be a spaceman, Oasis, 1994.


Read more!

I’m not and neither are you.

I’m not a Muslim, Christian or Jew, just a sinner saved by grace.

I’m not Malay, Chinese or bumiputera, just a prodigal in search of my niche.

I’m not a learned doctor with gifted healing hands, just another mortal who bleeds and grieves.

I’m not depressed, deranged or even remotely disenchanted; I’m just posing questions unto the heavens.

I’m not anti-government or pro-opposition, just a lover of justice and hater of corruption.

I’m not a rumor monger or doomsday prophet, just a self-appointed whistle blower.

I’m not a slanderous rebel blogger with an open identity, just a restless soul drinking from my cup.

You’re not special in the strictest sense of the word, just a person born into a certain skin and creed.

You’re not the Holy Father or a bona fide martyr, just a hypocritical phony who’s misleading millions.

You’re not afflicted, handicapped or even imperfect, just an individual among many others carrying one’s cross.

You’re not immortal or the least invincible, just a fat-ass pseudo-surgeon who will die like the patients you transformed into vegetables.

You’re not the democratically elected leader of an apartheid nation, just a horny old man who denied any involvement with a voluptuous Mongolian model.

You’re not insignificant or fighting a lost cause, just a drop of goodness making its ripples.

You’re not better off or worse than your brother, just blessed in the bittersweet manner of the Lord our God.

You’re not lost on a one way street to nowhere, at least not any more than how I am currently.


Read more!

The Beginning of the End?

Just as I had expected, treatment of my recently diagnosed medical condition has turned me into a dull and stoned person if not already, prior to this.

I have been struggling to think and write but each time the blank page of Microsoft Word appears, my goes as blank as the white screen.

There is no motivation to pen my thoughts, no drive to make any shocking exposẻ and no irritation to the things that usually drive me up the wall.

Is this the beginning of the end of POTS?

Or is this the beginning of another beginning, one with a more subdued and mellow version of myself?

Was all my supposed righteous rebellion the result of misguided neurons instead of an inherent sense of right and wrong?

Am I now my true self, the personality I am suppose to possess all this while without the influence of a deranged physiology?

Will I be happy rediscovering a fresh identity or will I cling on to a deceased self that continues to linger around for a while? Read more!

Hari Malaysia Ke-46: Bangkitlah Anak Sabah!

Kepada anak watan Negeri Di Bawah Bayu,

Apabila jam melimpasi pukul 12 malam ini, negeri Sabah akan meraikan Hari Malaysia yang ke-46 sempena penyertaan Sabah dan Sarawak untuk menubuhkan negara persekutuan bernama Malaysia.

Persoalaan saya kepada anda sekalian, patutkah penduduk Sabah merayakan ulang tahun acara tesebut?

Seperti mana yang saya difahamkan, Sabah dan Sarawak tidak menyertai sebuah kerajaan yang sedia wujud.

Dalam ’20 Point Agreement’ yang disediakan menjelang September 16, 1963, Sabah bukanlah semata-mata sebuah daripada 14 negeri dalam Malaysia malah bersama-sama Sarawak, Singapura dan Semenanjung Malaya, Sabah merupakan sebahagian daripada empat tonggak yang membentuk negara Malaysia.

Oleh itu, Sabah telah dijanjikan kuasa autonomi dalam pelbagai aspek.

Antaranya termasuklah pentadbiran dalam isu-isu kewarganegaraan, imigresen, pendidikan, kewangan, sumber-sumber asas, kerajaan tempatan dan perkhidmatan awam.

Cuba fikirlah anak Sabah sekalian.

Adakah kerajaan persekutuan UMNO/Barisan Nasional memenuhi janji-janji yang terkandung dalam persetujuan 20 Point Agreement tersebut?

Adakah Sabah merdeka dan berkuasa muktmad dalam isu-isu kewarganegaraan?

Lihatkah sekeliling Sabah dan hayatilah dengan mata sendiri kesan-kesan Projek IC yang dilancarkan Mahathir Mohammad.

Tidaklah saudara marah dan terkilan melihat mereka yang berbangsa Filipina, Indonesia dan Pakistan menerima kewarganegaraan dan bersama-samanya hak-hak istimewa bumiputera Sabah?

Pelancong asing dari sepelosok dunia melawat Sabah dan terpikat dengan keindahan Gunung Kinabalu dan kepelbagaian flora dan fauna laut Pulan Sipadan.

Mereka ini cukup kagum dengan pembangunan yang pesat di sekitar Kota Kinabalu di mana hotel-hotel berbintang lima berbaris di seluruh kota raya.

Akan tetapi, berapa banyakkah anak Sabah yang berpeluang untuk menikmati pembangunan dan keistimewaan semula jadi negeri mereka sendiri?

Kos yang diperlukan untuk memanjat Gunung Kinabalu ataupun menyelam di Pulau Sipadan kini melonjat sehingga satu tahap yang di luar kemampuan kebanyakan penduduk Sabah.

Banggakah sekalian semua akan hakikat ini?

Kekayaan negeri Sabah kini dinikmati croni-croni UMNO/BN serta orang asing yang berada.

Pemuda-pemudi Sabah pula terus meringkuk dalam kemiskinan malah masih banyak yang tidak berpendidikan dan berkahwin dalam umur belasan tahun.

Anak muda juga tidak berkemahiran dan kalaupun ada, sukar mencari peluang pekerjaan.

Adakah ini sesuatu pencapaian yang patut diraikan esok?

Sekolah-sekolah sekitar Sabah masih seperti zaman batu.

Banyak lagi yang tidak tidak dilengkapi kerusi meja, elektrik, air mahupun papan tulis dan tenaga pengajar.

Akibatnya, generasi Sabah yang akan datang akan tetap seperti moyang mereka yang jahil tanpa mobilti social.

Di manakah autonomi pendidikan yang dijanjikan pada September 16, 1963?

Kebodohan rakyat Sabah memilih UMNO sebagai kerajaan negeri berkali-kali telah secara tidak langsung mengetepikan anak Sabah sendiri.

Perkhidmatan awam negeri Sabah kini dikuasai mereka yang berbangsa istimewa dari seberang Laut Cina Selatan.

Pejabat-pejabat kerajaan sekitar Sabah kebanyakannya di bawah pentadbiran orang-orang Semenanjung yang tidak mengenali Sabah serta keperluan rakyatnya.

Ke mana pergikah pemimpin-pemimpin UMNO/BN yang dipilih oleh para pengundi Sabah dalam pilihanraya demi pilihanraya?

Politikus ini sudah memperbodoh rakyat Sabah dan masing-masing meragut kesempatan untuk meningkatkan kekayaan dan harta sendiri!

Ke mana perginya sumber-sumber asas negeri Sabah yang berlambak-lambak sebelum ini?

Dari balak ke minyak dan ikan ke batu karang, kekayaan negeri Sabah telah dieksploitasi dengan melampau sekali.

Si bodoh seperti Bung Mokhtar dan Pandikar Amin tidak segan mempamerkan korupsi masing-masing manakala rakyat jelata tiada hospital umum untuk mendapatkan rawatan apabila sakit tenat.

Jadi, bangga lagikah pasal kesampaian tarikh Sept 16 esok?

Saya menyeru rakyat Sabah untuk tidak lagi menuduh pengundi hantu berbangsa Filipina.

Sememangnya, parti perkauman bergelar UMNO gemar menawarkan wang dan kad pengenalan untuk membeli undi-undi orang asing.

Namun, rakyat Sabah tidak lagi dapat menafikan peranan mereka dalam politik wang.

Sekiranya ‘Sabahan’ sekalian ingin terus terkongkong dalam korupsi parti buli bernama UMNO, silakan menyambut September 16 dengan bangga hati.

Silakan mengundi UMNO pada pilihan raya akan datang.
Read more!

University Days: The Years I Slept Near A Surau

It was 5.30 am on a Sunday morning.

I was awake, not by effort or by consent but by chance.

It was the call of the azan coming from the college surau.


I had slept for less than three hours.

It was okay.

For five years I woke up intermittently up to the call to worship.

Mostly I went back to sleep.

Sometimes I could not.

Sometimes, it was the perfect way to be the early bird that catches the worm.

On Fridays, I would sometimes listen to the sermon coming from the mosque right next to University Malaya Medical Center.

There was little one else can do on a Friday afternoon.

The college rooms were stuffy and permeated with a stench of sweat-soaked socks.

Studying medical textbooks on a seething afternoon in such conditions were not possible for me.

It didn’t help too that the loudspeakers of the mosque faced my room directly.

Anyway, these were sermons delivered by UMNO-appointed imams.

I had grown accustomed to the hatred and anger in some sermons.

Among the usual Jew-bashing and anti-America overture, there were occasional reminders of how Malay and Islamic supremacy were supposedly under threat from the kafir population in Malaysia.

Anyway, I lived with five years of 200-decibel azan calls and Friday sermons teeming with xenophonic tones - just like so many non-Muslim students in public universities all over Malaysia.

It didn’t make me a lesser Christian.


Read more!

University Days: The Day I Was Declared Indecent

It was a day like any other, or so I thought.

We came back from swimming like we always did.

Our hair was still drenched and irritatingly grassy from the heavily chlorinated water of the UM swimming pool, except for Wong of course because he had no hair then.

We wasted no time and headed for the canteen.

My friends and I always had our forks and spoons in our swimming bags.

Mine was normally tucked comfortably between a worn swimming trunk and a used towel.

We made our way to the food counter in the canteen, preparing our student cards in order to collect food.


It was normally deep-fried catfish on Fridays.

The incredibly obese and bespectacled mak cik was seated as usual by the counter, halfheartedly and nonchalantly checking the students’ cards while giving a pleasant greeting.

I always appreciated her efforts to be nice and kind.

There was something different about today though.

A young Malay lass with no tudung was standing by mak cik, her arms folded across her chest in an authoritative position.

I have come to learn of this lady as a newly appointed hostel warden.

She aged no more than 24 years.

In other words, she was much younger than some of us final year students then.

She was a failed government scholar pursuing a trainee lecturer course with UM.

From afar, I could see her reprimanding some students, both Muslims and non-Muslims alike.

Some headed back to their rooms without food.

I wondered why.

We found out soon enough.

By the time our turns came to collect food, the six of us experienced Islamic hypocrisy of the highest degree.

We were chided for wearing sandals and short pants.

One of us was told off for wearing a sleeveless shirt.

We were told that our dressing was indecent and unacceptable for a Muslim nation.

Our behavior and noncompliance to the new college dressing rules was deemed unbecoming.

Our manner of dressing was allegedly promoting immoral activities within the college and posed a challenge to the Islamic faith.

We were threatened with expulsion and disciplinary action.

After a brief but lasting tongue lashing, we were sent to our rooms for a change of attire.

By then, my friends and I were already more than pissed, our appetite gone for a good reason.

We ended up eating in section 17, treating ourselves to a truly porky meal and the pleasures that came with it.

For the rest of the year, students were held and disciplined for trivial reasons like pants that hang more than two inches above the knees and sandals that do not cover enough of the feet.

All students who wanted to eat after were required to be in a ‘decent’ attire befitting of an Islamic country, even if one was soaked with sweat or feeling mighty hot after evening sports.

Meanwhile, the male wardens and their student friends continued smoking and puffing and littering cigarette buds around the hostel.

The free-hair lady warden too continued exerting her ruthless reign over students much older than her.

It was just another day in the premier university of negarakuku.
Read more!