The Philippines Hostage Crisis on August 23, 2010 was a tragedy. A former Philippines police officer caused eight deaths and himself being killed after eleven hours of holding hostage of fifteen Hong Kong tourists in Manila. Part of the event had been broadcasted live and many Hong Kong citizens had watched in TV. We were shocked by the drastic turn of the situation. Our hearts were broken when we heard the gun shots. We felt terribly sorry for the victims and their families. Among these feelings, most of us also felt angry. The actions of the Philippines police were nothing better than foul play. That was a tragic demonstration of the Murphy’s Law, that anything capable of going wrong did go wrong.
I could feel the anger of many
people while reading commentaries and responses from newspapers, magazines and
the internet. I looked into my angry
feelings and tried to reason why I felt angry, as anger could be dangerous if it
was not addressed properly. The obvious
reason was the unskillful rescue by the police. It led us to the conclusion that they
contributed to the failure of the rescue, and therefore death and injuries of
so many people. I did not expect the
Philippines to be comparable to other advance countries like the United States.
They could be less well equipped and
less well trained. However, it was their
performance which led me to the conclusion, without reasonable doubt, that they
lacked the right attitude and the “heart” to save lives. Their “didn’t care” attitude guided their
actions. So common sense was not
applied, and consequences were not anticipated before each move. Sadly, these seemed to apply to all levels in
the Philippines team. No one had the
mind and intention to discharge even his basic duty of care that he owned the
victims. Via satellites, I could vividly
feel the actualization of the unavoidable tragic ending because of the
problematic attitudes. I felt angry.
The above “attitude and common
sense analysis” reminded me of two stories told by my patients. (I think family doctors would share my
experience of listening to stories, sometimes long-winded ones, from our
patients. It is interesting to note that
many patients do come to tell their stories and forgetting about their chief
complaints after the first two minutes of consultations. It is more interesting to find that some
patients come to give advice instead of receiving advice. Anyway, these two stories were told by two
young pretty ladies and I listened to them with great interest.)
The first lady complained about
her bad experience after her eye check by an ophthalmologist for dry eyes. Her contact lens were taken off and her pupils
dilated while she told the nurse that she did not have any spare contact lens
or glasses. The consultation was
uneventful and the diagnosis was dry eyes. However, she had difficulty in locating the
door when leaving the clinic and was luckily directed by the nurse to the door.
The rest of her trip home was less lucky
and she asked me to surf through Youtube to see if there was any clip showing
her wandering around in the corridor, in the lift lobby, in the MTR station and
in some places unknown to her; and touching the walls and everything nearby.
That was not the end of the
story. What agitated her more was the
experience in the following week. She
visited a beauty salon for what I called augmentation of eyelashes. It is a process which practically sticks some
artificial eyelashes to the original eyelashes, on a one-to-one basis, to make
them look longer, and maybe thus prettier. Her visit was for the removal of the
previously augmented ones and then to have new ones someday afterwards. The punch line was that after the removal of
the fake eyelashes, the technician was really taken aback when my patient told
her that she did not bring with her any make-up for the eyes. She practically stopped my patient from
leaving and tried hard to find some remedy for her. No, it was not what you and I figured. She was not selling any other product to my
patient.
The next lady’s story was about
her face allergy. She was troubled by
rashes on her face for several months. She
had seen various doctors including dermatologists. Many tests had been done and important causes
including immunological causes like SLE had been excluded. The diagnosis was there: allergy; but not much
could be done except local application of steroid cream. Systemic steroid and oral anti-allergy
medication had been tried but effects were only short-termed. And of course traditional Chinese medical
practitioners had been consulted and some magic ointments from neighbors and
relatives had been applied and with no significant effect.
She was cured eventually. Her
family doctor asked her to make a detailed diary of the appearance and subsiding
of the rashes together with her daily activities and everything that came in
contact with her face. Upon careful
analysis, it was found that the beginning of the appearance of the rash
coincided with the partial tearing of her duvet bought in Shenzhen. A breakage of the duvet cover led to the exposure
of some fiber content that might cause irritation. A changing of the duvet eliminated the rashes
in a few days time.
These two stories came to my
memory because they both illustrated that knowledge, technique and training
sometimes were not the most important ingredients during consultation. With a caring attitude (the heart) and common
sense, a girl who stuck eyelashes was more aware of consequences after
operation. A family doctor with training
in dermatology incomparable to a dermatologist could use his time and patience
(and common sense) to help his troubled patient. These are the lessons that I regularly bring
up to remind myself.
(Source: HKMA News September 2010)
