Thursday, August 23, 2012

Define Legal

One of the memorable quotes from Susan Lim's lawyer was to ask if there is a law against making profits. The Singapore answer to that one seems to be: it depends on who is raking in the millions.

The Singapore Medical Council (SMC) finally suspended surgeon Dr Lim from practising for three years and fined her $10,000.  All because her rich patient, reputed sister of the Queen of Brunei, didn't quibble about the bills before she succumbed to her breast cancer. Her surviving relatives did.

Before you reject the doctor's submission that the SMC had  made "errors in law and errors of fact", consider her argument that Singapore has no guideline on the maximum fee that a doctor can charge a patient, charges that are mutually agreed upon between doctor and patient before treatment can commence. Consider also the compensation of a high earning professional like Lim is used in the benchmark to compute the ministerial salaries. Which also has no maximum ceiling.

The hot seat again
There is also no ceiling for the amount spent on a office chair. The Attorney-General Chambers (AGC) is defending it's purchases of Herman Millers by explaining that it had "complied with all relevant procurement rules and best practices for its procurements." If these guys don't know the law of the land, who does? Even SPRING (an agency under the Ministry of Trade and Industry), who paid $650 instead of the $597 charged by the same vendor to AGC, is coughing up the same justification - that the agency has "adopted the best sourcing approach" - to make it sound all perfectly legal.

Legalised corruption is still corruption, or as the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB) presents it, low corruption doesn't mean there's no corruption. The CPIB spokesman said, "The fundamental building block is to make sure people have the right values and ethics..." Now that's more difficult to define.

30 comments:

  1. To avoid confusion and favoritism, the law should also punish politicians who overcharged the poor citizens and taxpayers hundred millions in salaries and pensions. Some were not even suspended, but went on to semi retirement for post-glory. This country has gone to the dogs!

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  2. There is no law. Politicians from the ruling party basically go unpunished. Very few people dare to vote them off. Even if they're voted out, a lot of businesses like to curry-favor the ruling party by awarding plum jobs to these defeated MPs/ministers.

    Looks like the only route to get super-high pay without being punished is to join the ruling party!

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  3. Ministers' pay is calculated based on the top earners.SusanLim's income must surely be included in the computation.If they claim she overcharged, then ministers' pay for the years when her income was included in the calculation must be recomputed based on the reduced/acceptable charges n the ministers must refund the overpayment

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  4. //Most of the old office chairs replaced were in use for more than 10 years and some had been in use since AGC moved to its present premises in 1991," the spokesperson added.//-- TODAY

    Is clear even normal non-designer chairs can last a good 10/20+ years so who's quibbling about warranty and procurement process here - totally moot. They pay extra $400+ for lumbar support, might as well go grow some spine, instead of hiding behind a flagrant government and quote bullshit like 'value for money''long term ROI'' using other people's money.

    Yesterday is HM chairs. Today is iPad, montblanc, brompton bikes. Tomorrow is ??

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    Replies
    1. Tomorrow is Overseas music lessons for the civil servant's children under education expenses/subsidies, as revealed in audit general report.

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  5. She has been receiving royalties in the past.

    She can now write a book next 3 yrs to continue receiving royalties during the suspension.

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    1. Her practice is almost bankrupted. And she has to sell her cove house too. But that doesn't take away the fact that she's a brilliant medical doctor who puts Singapore on the world map. I hope she keeps doing what she's doing, and watch for greed.

      http://blog.ted.com/2011/04/15/transplanting-cells-not-organs-susan-lim-on-ted-com/

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  6. Wow! Why so much cynicism.

    Wonder if it will be unlawful for anyone to give his/her fortune to anyone else who does nothing for the gift?

    Or, will one be penalized, for giving a red packet and eight oranges to give to a Member Of Parliament just to wish him/her good fortune?

    When a business transaction is done to the satisfaction of the buyer and seller, is it the business for a third party to interfere? What about caveat emptor and caveat actor?

    Am of the view that if a citizen revers a politician so much as to present the politician all his/her estate as gift, both the giver and receiver have commit no wrong. Or am I wrong to think so?

    ReplyDelete
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    1. 'Am of the view that if a citizen revers a politician so much as to present the politician all his/her estate as gift'

      For real, or a hypothetical case? This giftor must be checked for mental health. More than meets the eyes.

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    2. The Chinese custom is to exchange oranges. You give him two oranges, he gives you another two. The red packet is meant to be given by married couples to singles only (children or adults). Your MP still unmarried? What's wrong with him/her?

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    3. Loving how this has turned towards CNY and exchanging oranges.

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  7. Raking or Raiding?8/23/2012 1:33 PM

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djS0-zy3lfM&feature=player_embedded

    Can anyone define how legal this is? Do they have maximum ceiling to gamble our money?

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  8. For reverence to elders and rulers, the Chinese may even sacrifice themselves and their families. They made sacrifices without asking for anything in return when dealing with their Rulers.
    And of course in the old imperial system, everything in the land belongs to the Rulers, including the lives of the people.

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  9. Susan Lim is a good doctor.

    I cannot see what she has done wrong.

    To engage a person of her ability and earning capacity to be at the beck and call of a single patient, what should reasonable fees be?

    She should not be hastily judged. You pay for what you demand. Did she charge for what was demanded of her?

    was there any evidence of fraudulent billing? I dont think so.

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    Replies
    1. I am curious too, how SMC can come up with such a laundry list of 94 charges against her -- incredible. All for "overcharging compared to the one who lied twice for cover up and abetting? Is like saying you are charged for over-speeding when no law has stipulated what is the speed limit?

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    2. One suspects politics of envy is involved here. It's similar to what COC is doing, impeding City Harvest Church members' efforts to raise funds for the court battle. The system cannot be wrong, even if their chief law enforcer, is splurging public funds on expensive office chairs.

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    3. CHC officials are diverting monies meant for the building fund to other unauthorised purposes. Only some of its members have been thoroughly brain-washed to the extent of brain-dead that they cannot even think logically and wish to still support those leaders who are responsible for the misuse of funds. They should rightly pay for their sins/malfeasance individually.

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  10. Singapore notes,

    may I know if subjecting to political will and manipulation by ruling party is itself a legalised corruption ? Can CPIB answer this question ? YES or NO ?

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  11. Maybe the authority can clarify if a chair is broken just after a year in service, would it be returned for warranty or chuck aside till it gather dust

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  12. I have initial anger with Dr Susan Lim, but am now on her side for the following reasons :-
    1) there was this removal of Fees Guidelines by the SMC due to that "less than wise" Fair Competition Council interpretation of the law,
    making it nonsensical to charge her for "Over-charging",
    2) the Sultan & family had not complained about the "high fees" until ....
    and seriously, they can afford it.
    3) the way the case unfolded, I consider it a witch hunt in the 21st Century.


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    Replies
    1. Actually according to the Medical Registration Act, the aggrieved PATIENT must necessarily file an affadavit to constitute a proper complaint made to the SMC. The Ministry of Health (MOH) has no business whatsoever to file it on behalf of/in the name of the patient, who unfortunately had expired. Therefore the SMC should not even entertain a hearing since the so-called complaint filed was procedurally and hence legally wrong right from the outset.

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  13. For one filthy rich foreigner, it looks like they sees it fit upon themselves to make sure justice is done for whatever it takes.

    But for those miserably poor hundreds (if not thousands) of foreign workers who are forcibly made to pay kickbacks to their labour agents in order to obtain/renew their work permits, they seems to least bothered that any justice is done, if one were to judge by the no. of cases prosecuted.

    Just imagine if these hundreds or thousands cases were to be registered & prosecuted as corruption cases, what would happen to Singapore's corruption ranking ?

    Is that why we even have legalised deportation of foreign workers by the busloads ?

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  14. Another hand is there, a very, very influential and powerful hand.

    The truth will only be know about 2 centuries from now... if anyone dares to write about it. Stamford Raffles's genital infection was revealed only 100 years after his death.

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  15. Angpau(red-packet containing gift of money or valueable) is not confine to Chinese Lunar New Year. It can be given anytime and anywhere for any reason; birthday, wedding, appreciation and reverence etc , even at funeral services. It is slightly different from 'kopi lui', another form of money gift widely practised traditionally.

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  16. I also know that the AGC bought a whole lot of the HM chairs in 2009. There was excess budget to "burn" as the end of the financial year (end Mar 2009)approached. A young scholar suggested HM chairs to use up the budget. To the best of my recollection, they bougth abt 200 chairs. Many staff later relaised that the chairs were too big to fit into tight cubicles used by the lower rung staff. The chairs ended up being used to stack files on for many of these staff.

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    1. If you do not use up the money allocated to your government department, instead of getting praise for frugality for saving money, the head of department has the unpleasant task of explaining why the full amount was not utilised and most likely get reprimanded for over-budgeting and deprive other departments who are regarded as having their allocationd proporionally slashed. So the simplest avenue is to exhaust all monies still left unused and avoid the unpleasnt task of doing all the explaining. What an idiotic situation because of the actions of some imbeciles.

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  17. There is no limit to greed.
    There is also no limit to stupidity for agreeing to pay such high prices.

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  18. As usual, I only have praise to this author. Beautifully written with facts supported. The art of wit with sarcasism at its height. Love it!

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  19. Any "conversation with Singaporeans" on this case? ANy Inclusiveness?
    They do reserve the right to be silent don't they as and when they choose isn't it?

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  20. MORAL CORRUPTION:

    - Dr Susan Lim inflated other doctors' bills by 10 times which smacks of amorality and dishonesty.

    - National wealth redistribution schemes (eg,
    National GST Offset Package, Grow & Share Package, etc) announced just before General Election is tantamount to legalized vote-buying.

    - HDB Lift Upgrading Program (LUP) priority based on GE vote percentage for one political party when LUP funding comes from public $$$ is fundamentally wrong.

    When Singaporeans allow such 93% parliamentary dominance by 1 political party, everything and anything can be legalized and legitimized.

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