Anaesthetist misbehaviour

Question is, why did the surgeon and team not object to this?

Patients often depend on their appointed surgeon to choose the anaesthetist.



From Straits Times —

SINGAPORE – An anaesthetist who walked out of the operating theatre several times to take calls from other patients while another in his care was undergoing surgery has been suspended for 2½ years, the Singapore Medical Council said on Tuesday.

During the operation in 2016, the patient suffered a complication when a blood clot blocked oxygen from his lungs, an event known as a pulmonary embolism. He was successfully resuscitated by a team of doctors, but died the following day.

The Singapore Medical Council’s disciplinary tribunal said the patient’s chances of surviving the embolism was very low. But that chance may have been further lowered by Dr Islam Md Towfique’s delay in recognising the changes in the patient’s vital signs and consequent delay in taking action.

Dr Islam told the tribunal it was common practice for anaesthetists to leave the operating theatre for short periods of time.

The patient, 64, had surgery performed at Gleneagles Hospital on a fracture caused by his bone marrow cancer on Sept 1, 2016. Given his age, obesity, prior heart problems and cancer, he was “considered a high anaesthetic risk patient”, said the tribunal. 

During the operation, his oxygen reading fell below 90 per cent, “into the 80s and 70s”. Normal range for blood oxygen level is between 96 per cent and 99 per cent. Despite that, the oxygen given to the patient was not increased.

Hospital parent firm Parkway Pantai Ltd said in a letter to Dr Islam that “increasing the oxygen delivery is one of the first few actions that an anaesthetist should initiate when a patient’s SpO2 falls, and yet for almost 50 minutes, with the SpO2 either un-recordable or in an unacceptable range, this remedial action was not taken”.

M1 SunPerks Rewards Not Rewarding Enough

SunPerks is M1's reward programme for M1 mobile (including Corporate Individual), broadband and M1 IDD residential fixed line customers.

M1 boldly advertises — "With every $1 spent on M1 bills, you will earn 1 SunPerks point".

M1 goes on to say — "You may use the points to redeem rewards. Every point is a reward!"


However, "you will earn" does not necessarily translates to "you will get to redeem".


For example, after 2 years of contract, this is what a 500-GB Fibre-plan subscriber would get:-

$29* per month x 24 months = TOTAL $696 = TOTAL 696 SunPerks rewards points.
*2020 price has since increase to $29.90.


Here's the Catch: M1's minimum points for redemption is 900 points, that is to redeem a $5 off Fibre Broadband Bill Plan Subscription per month for 2 months.




After two whole years, for those on lower value plans, there is nothing to redeem.

M1 should be more transparent about this, right at the beginning on a contract, or re-contract.

Feedbacks for M1 to halve it to 450 points, in order to allow customers to redeem a $5 off Fibre Broadband Bill Plan Subscription per month for 1 month (instead of 2 months), has so far fallen on deaf years.

For some of us, after two years of anticipation, the SunPerks just acts as a tease.

Irresponsible Cab Driver - Part 2

Infected again!  By yet another taxi driver who cough badly and spread his germs to us.

After our bed-ridden experience from one "Irresponsible Cab Driver" in 2015, we encounter yet again another one who was coughing so badly that the taxi swerved as he fought to control the wheels while struggling to suppress his cough with even more sweets and then eventually, giving his cough the all-out blast, bombing the whole cab!  We were travelling on a highway, so it would be a distance before we can call him to a halt - by which time, we would have reached the destination. 

We were so shocked that none of us thought to ask him to open the windows to let the germs out.

That would have been the regular reaction, except this time, we got distracted trying to make out what he was mumbling under his breath.  He was not only sick, he appears demented, and we thought it wiser to try to make out what he was talking to himself, in case he got agitated by us wanting to abort the trip or making any changes. 

True enough, just as the taxi reached the end of the highway, he mumbled: "Suicide lah (cough! cough!)"

Another poor victim

By then, we were nearing the end (of the destination; not our end, thankfully).  We got out of the taxi in a jiffy.

That's it!

Since there is no law to prevent taxi drivers from working while suffering from cough and flu, we will remember to ask all future taxi drivers if they are suffering from this ailment before we board.   

Another few days of being bedridden and the lost productivity is no joke, not to mention the need for another round of antibiotics as we got quite badly infected, coughing till the throat became raw and inflamed.

Spreading of disease by taxi drivers who are obviously sick, yet choose to drive for money without consideration for public health, should be made an offence.

ShopBack Click-bait

ShopBack is copying Qoo10.

When googling, we try to avoid clicking on Qoo10 urls because whatever opens up shows no semblance to the topic searched.

In ShopBack's case, they put tantalising keywords to hook customers into clicking the email.

But when you click in response to the Subject title, you have to run through a whole list of vendors and you still could not find the topic at hand.

As a recent example, they blast out: "Want 20GB free data?"

This only leads to advertisement for an assortment of vendors' products.

Time-wasters!  Subject has nothing to do with content.
Or if it is there, they make sure you click every other links before finding it.

Popular Sale To Avoid

Not going to be tricked again.

Popular sale at Singapore Expo has always been good.

But we avoid Popular's BookFest@Singapore no matter what the lure.  2 hours-long cashier queue cleverly hidden by partitions - even during off-peak sales hours.

Once bitten, twice shy.

Want us to be repeat customers?

Nah.  Not going to happen.

SBS Stops Replying To Feedbacks

So it's been a week since we've had to complain about the SBS driver who zooms his service bus past a group of poor army boys who had been waiting for some time already at the bus stop outside camp.

Not surprisingly, no reply.

Perhaps for the better, since last time, we got scolded for submitting a feedback.

Service standards, Singapore style?

Hachi.Tech Nightmare

We used to think we should purchase items from outlets that offers the best bargains.

After our shopping experience with Hachi Tech, we've learnt the importance of factoring in the time value, as well as the stress involved, into the shopping equation. 

One really cannot simply buy on price alone.

Now, even if we find an extraordinary cheap deal at Hachi.Tech (that hasn't been the case so far due to competition from many other vendors), we will avoid Hachi.Tech online website like a plague.

First, they expect members to pay for membership.
That's still ok because for $8 membership, they give $10 back - but that is provided you remember to key in the new member code. But why charge in the first place? Hassle, hassle.

Second, the period to redeem the rebates is a very short 1 month.
They may extend another month, but overall, again, that's a hassle.
The aim is to leave customers no choice but to keep going back to them.
That's almost harrassment.
The rewards are not attractive enough to keep one tethered to them.
We hate organisations which holds one to ransom in this way.

Third, to redeem your rightful rebates, you need to spend a minimum purchase of $5!
This wasn't informed in advance.
We got an unpleasant shock after checking out the redemption cart. Only then did the information that the $5 requirement pop out. We wasted good time selecting the wrong price range as a result, and have to repeat all over again to incorporate their greedy requirement.

Forth, for purchase below $80, you'd likely want to pick it up at designated stores to avoid delivery fees. So to redeem, you have to factor this in as well.  Hassle, hassle.

Fifth, the FAQ doesn't get to the above points. We went round and round and still the terms and conditions that might make the customers NOT want to have anything to do with Hachi Tech, are not found (at least at time of writing).

We only knew of the restrictions AFTER we made a purchase.

Especially since Hachi Tech has no telephone number to contact, unlike all other online vendors, they should have made it easier for customers to make informed decisions.

Hopefully, after feedback, they have revise their FAQs.

Any restrictions should be prominent enough, otherwise, until one is about to redeem.

Sixth, there is no hotline to call. You can only chat or email.

Seventh, the customer service is worst of the worst.
When we email, we get an automated response to say a support staff will get back to us soon, followed by a next reply of "Case closed!" from the support staff.  No explanation, no apologies, nothing.  Just a "Case closed!"  Life is so easy for the support staff!

Eighth, items that are popular are always out of stock.

Nineth, the only time we got a response to pre-sales enquiries was when we wrote to Fujisu sales rep. Only then did we receive a response from Hachi.Tech sales rep.

Tenth, their credit card payment system is routed via the eNets system. It cause quite a bit of confusion (which means more time has to be expended towards double-checking). It confused the credit card company so much, it required half an hour before they confirm the credit card transaction was valid.

We want to make it a rounded 10-fingers count, but apparently,  still haven't reach the end..
So on to the big toe for the next reason we are moving away from Hachi Tech....

Eleventh point: we simply hate the name Hachi.tech with the full-stop and all.
It is a non-Japanese entity, but the name sounds desperately that of a Japanese wanna-be. It was Challenger Online previously, with better service and product range.  They say when it is not broken, don't fix it.

By providing an unpleasant online experience, it seems to us that Challenger fixed themselves even without the help of their competitors.