So why is the Ministry of Defence trying so hard to absolve themselves of accountability?
Private Dominique Sarron Lee had declared his last asthma attack was 3 years prior to his pre-enlistment check-up date on 4 Jan 2011. Unfortunately he forgot, or forgot to mention, he was treated by a general practitioner for a relapse on 25 Oct 2010. Or maybe he was too gung ho to serve his nation, and did not want to be seen as a wimp hiding behind a desk. Or saving babies' lives in a hospital. Or polishing test tubes in a laboratory. We'll never know, dead men tell no tales. Nevertheless, he did check "yes" in the box for asthma/lung disease. And he was certified combat-fit by the SAF Medical Classification Centre.
When asthma is in remission, it's not necessarily gone for good. One out of three kids who beats asthma by age 18 gets it again by the time they're 26. (Sears MR, Greene JM, Willan AR, et al. "A longitudinal, population-based, cohort study of childhood asthma followed to adulthood", New England Journal of Medicine 2003; 349:1414–1422)
A combat medic testified earlier when the coroner's inquiry started in April that he was not trained to deal with asthma attacks. He has now clarified that SAF medics are indeed certified in basic cardiac support and in dealing with with asthma. The revision in sworn testimony was attributed to an attack of nerves.
The headlines are declaring that Private Dominique "gave inaccurate information" about his last asthma attacks, sounding ominously like he committed perjury in a court of law ("NSF did not report last asthma attack"). He is in no position to offer an excuse of nerves. Private Dominique is dead. We should honour the dead.
Posts
Yes, it is shocking for Mindef to come up with such a stunt after his death. Looks like Ng Eng Hen trying to save cost for SAF.
ReplyDeleteOur politics is so "cleaned", even a dead soldier is headline as "untruthful". It never ceases to amaze me why the question he was fit for combat in the first place was not raised despite his earlier declaration, and later omission. And when the same group of military generals later are sent in by the party to "fix" the rebels in civilian uniform, as heads in the civil service, you know the same behavior in abdication of accountability is washed, rinsed and repeated.
ReplyDeleteWell, what does your WP MPs has to say....beside talking about the housekeeping in hawker centre.
ReplyDeleteWhat are they there for
Don't know. Ask your Vivian to find out since dengue doesn't seem to be under his portfolio as Environment minister. Smoke (haze) his specialty.
DeleteWP MPs don't have to do much, not when PAP MPs are shooting themselves in the foot, ....right ?
DeleteIn fact, they should show pleasure in watching the bunch of PAP idiots wanking each other silly.
Ask yourself, do you need to expend energy when your enemy is in self destruct mode ? Why bother to slap the PAP idiots to wake them up, just wait for the right moment to finish them off with the hammer....
Correction. WP has stopped talking a long time ago after laying out the facts. It was the PAP that cannot stop talking (or answer simple questions posed by the WP) in parliament.
DeleteI have said it before and I will say it again. The root cause of this bureaucratic disease lies in the mandarin system devised by LKY to keep himself and his annointed in power. With the wonderful iron rice bowls who wants to admit his error and be excluded from the riches and power conferred?
ReplyDeleteIt is unacceptable to insinuate that the responsibility to inform lies with staff,employee etc.
ReplyDeleteThe pressures of work, duty and culture may have curtailed the option, even if that option was reminded time and again. Just like before a run, all participants are asked en mass if anyone feels sick. It does not absolve blame. There is implied duty of care from the organisers or authority.
This is what being a civilized people means.
This is so typical of the civil service, government and bureaucracy. Build in an escape clause and wipe your hands of all blame.
Unethical, immoral and disgusting behaviour that does not command any respect. Despicable.
Brilliantly written piece. I nvr fail to be awed by your penetrating incisive analysis. It speaks volumes of our current pathetic dysfunctioning in our regime! You are our hero for enlightening us esp the ignorant 60% amongst us!
ReplyDeleteInstead of Safety issues for discussion in parliament, why bring up hawker market OBE issue again which had consider closed n dissolved.
ReplyDeleteMy sympathy to family of Dominique. SAF should be more gracious about their mistakes. Do not push away responsibilities to the poor soldier. How can we trust SAF to defence our country when lies are a standard way to escape punishment?
ReplyDeleteI was equally outraged when I read the shitty times article. NS men are already asking who are they defending. Guidelines weren't followed and now SAF tries to blame the deceased? OMFG.
ReplyDeleteThe headline should have been:
ReplyDelete"SAF medic lied about asthma training"
One of our precious sons died serving our nation and the gahmen lay-blamed on the dead soldier. If one of the white horse is inside, even though he has no history of asthma, do these captians dare to do the same? Why not put these captains inside with 6 smoke grenades thrown in to experience how Dominique fought for his life and also all those who blamed it on the poor dead boy. It is really frightening to live here!
ReplyDeleteStand up, stand up for Singapore.
ReplyDeleteThis Singapore refers to Singapore's reserves hor.
Not Singaporeans.
Huk Pui!
if omission is construed as giving inaccurate information then all ministers and government officials are feeding inaccurate information to us every now and then.
ReplyDeletei feel sorry for the medic. he has been set in a predicament. when he denied he was trained in the management of asthma attack, he made saf look bad. when he now claimed to be trained, is he risking being faulted for failing his duty? saf should take note of vb's admonition "... the key principle when you have power is, don't take advantage of people under your charge ..."
OMG
ReplyDeleteThat abused boy did not report that he was liable to be abused. His parents did not report that also. They screwed up First Screw Camp childcare reputation.
How can the Shit Times be so callous to headline as such? If you are the parents of Dominique, how would you feel? Have a heart, dont open the wounds of the living.Simply disgusting. rot in hell, the one who frame it.
ReplyDeleteHis poor mother has been attending to his grave EVERDAY. Probably hasn't gotten over his death. How heartwrenching when I read about it and yes how disgusting ST and those people can be.
DeleteYou know the system is rotten to the core when they resort to "technicality" to absolve themselves of manslaughter. Again a shameful example of a civil (in this case "military" but without "honour") service which works on the principle of "The bucket stops right below me". Pinkie and folks talk so much cock about population 6.9m, and they squander lives of our children like some animals to be smoked and burnt to ashes in some Sumatran palm oil plantations. How do you expect young men to "stand up for Singapore" when one of their friends serving the nation dies because of a total dereliction of responsibility right though the SAF chain of command, and he gets posthumously discredited for wanting to serve. Don't blame us for cynicism.
ReplyDeletePAPig Joke
ReplyDelete---------
You never see Superman and Clark Kent together, in the same room right?
You never see Spiderman and Peter Parker together, in the same room right?
Anybody ever see Ng Eng Hen and a bucket of shit together, in the same room?
Well, there have been occasions Ng Eng Hen was in the same room with a bucket of Vivian, or perhaps it was a bucket of Ng Eng Hen and a bucket of Vivian in the same room.
Deleteso .... what the public opinions;
ReplyDelete- he committed suicide?
- he died serving the nation?
- he shamed the nation because he "did" not gave proper informations to the relevant authority and his news of his death resulted in bad publicity for some?
- or what is a misadventure?
Another smoke (haze) case. Poor chap died serving his National Service and all his superiors and the national Newspaper blamed him for not protesting that he was put in combat unit.
DeleteMany of us old soldiers, could have see the smoke screen coming. Sorry guys, do not mean to be that naughty, using "smoke" here and there. Vocab rather limited after the haze, no ? Must be the PM2.5.....
Public opinion "depends" on who does the poll, but no polls are allowed so the mess media will manipulate and fabricate a "public opinion". To be honest, red dotters are rather shallow after years of intox from the propaganda media, they eagerly digest whatever is fed to them. I have since given up fighting the numerous "man on the street" supporters of miw, like trying to cure dementia patuents thick with tau and mayloid beta between their ears.
Delete6 grenades thrown against max permissible 2 should have been enough to hold SAF liable of negligence. Any exclusion or non-disclosure of info is immaterial. Looks like they are gearing towards finding fault with the deceased's non-disclosure as if if he had made the disclosure, they wouldn't have thrown the 6 grenades to begin with.
ReplyDeleteEvery human shares a common destiny ultimately, and that is death. My question is...
ReplyDelete1. Dying for something or
2. Dying for nothing
fish 'n' chips
He could have been an assistant to a soil disease research scientist except he had not declared that he had an asthma attack 3 months prior to his enlistment... but had he been the son of Hen, he could even be the research scientist with or without asthma.
ReplyDeleteToo bad his real fault was that he had the wrong genes.
When they were trying to defend their policy of forcing astma sufferers to the most strenuous military training, they claimed there were no problems with the thousands of asthma Pes A NS boys. Now they realize the implications of their freaking mistake, they change the tune and said "see, its always not our fault, the chap cheated us!". This current bunch of shameless civil masters have totally confused the word "service" with "self service" - they are there to serve themselves, line their pockets, and get promoted to the next level of incompetence - hyporcrisy's evelope has once again been re-defined in singapore'c civil service. It has become a gigantic kafkaesque self-preserving machine, incapable of knowing right from wrong, insensitive to signals of impending doom, like dinosaurs just before their extinction.
ReplyDeleteDefinition of SELF-SERVING
Delete: serving one's own interests often in disregard of the truth or the interests of others
Deletehttp://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/self-serving
If there is an inquest, I am sure the state will hire high-powered lawyers and expert witnesses to show that the cause of death was totally due to the dead soldier's negligence. Do you need the verdict?
ReplyDeleteRemember the case about an NS man who fell in barrack resulting permanent disability?
ReplyDeleteRemember the taichi of Mindef to absolve from liablity claiming it occurred after duty hours?
The poor parents had to go all the way to the High Court for compensation, and WON!
To serve with honour for country, My blxxdy FOOT!
I am appalled. I served my NS, and I am disgusted that MINDEF will treat a fallen soldier in this way. If Yakult is talking about standards, MSM has outdid itself with this headline. I really hope the parents of this NS man sue the ST.
ReplyDeleteNS = National slavery...we Singaporean male and our sons are slave to this dictator regime, ICT, RT, IPPT, exit permit... Till 40 years old. South Korea and Taiwan hardly call up for reservist... We are just slave and looking for the day our next generation will be free from this slavery.
ReplyDeleteSingapore is moving towards many serious challenges, high inflations,unusual high properties prices, high car prices, debt ridden youth or societies, haze, dengue, gambling habits, casinos, prostitutions, cheap foreigners taken over Singaporean jobs, high suicides rates, broken families, highly trained and qualified Singaporean moving away from Singapore etc, one wonder how Singapore going to solve it, in topsy turvy? Leaving Singaporean with lesser and lesser room for error?
ReplyDeleteSPOT THE DIFFERENCES!!!
ReplyDeleteTaipei, July 15 (CNA) An army corporal who died on July 4, just two days before he was to be discharged, was a "high risk" serviceman, and the drills he was asked to perform and their intensity did not conform to the rules, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said Monday.
The failure to observe drill rules was one of several lapses identified in the MND's administrative report on the death of Hung Chung-chiu, a 24-year-old graduate of National Cheng Kung University serving in the army's 542nd Armor Brigade in Hsinchu.
Hung died while being held by the 269th Brigade in Taoyuan, after he was sent there on June 28 for violating regulations on bringing a camera phone onto his base.
The corporal was to be discharged on July 6 after completing his year of compulsory military service.
Maj. Gen. Hsia Fu-hua, an MND supervisory director, said that during a morning drill on July 3, Hung complained to the guard watching him that "the heavy drilling was beyond his physical strength," but he was told to continue.
The guard failed to consider Hung's physical condition even though Hung weighed 98.3 kilos despite only measuring 1.72 meters and had a BMI of 33.
The corporal failed the physical and psychological assessment required before throwing somebody into the brig, but that was ignored, the report said, and Hung's guard should have considered less taxing forms of training considering Hung's physical condition.
Later that day, another rigorous physical test was scheduled at 3:40 p.m., but the ....
As telecasted by Taiwan cti(中天亚洲台).
ReplyDeleteThe Family of the Victimized Deceased is getting much sympathy from the Media and Taiwanese People.
In Sg, the Media does not do investigative report like cti.
this news paper has become a toilet rag and nothing more... while MinDef spends millions on bus adverts and tv spots. they fail to realise these events create low moral.
ReplyDelete