YOURSAY | ‘Ali Hamsa, why wait 400 days before taking action against errant housemen?’

Housemen who 'disappear' from duty among those sacked

Anonymous 539281478077880: This is not something new in the medical profession. You must go to the root cause as to why some housemen go missing or absent from duty.

First and foremost, they are pressurised with long working hours. Next, they are bullied by their seniors and specialists for any mistakes. So to take their easy way out, they go missing or ‘play truant’.

I have seen many housemen doing locum at many private clinics before they finish their internship. This is an easy way of making money. No one can deny this as this is supposedly the trend in government hospitals.

Too many interns in one department can also be the cause as the medical officers (MOs) and specialists can't keep track of the missing ones. The ‘lazy ones’ will definitely know the way out due to the ‘inefficiency of the hospitals’ they work at.

Everyone should buck up, from the ‘pengarah’ (director) to the lowest rank in the medical profession.

P Dev Anand Pillai: Sadly, the civil service which was once one of the best in the Commonwealth has now become an over-bloated super-sized mass of employees who allegedly just can't get employment elsewhere.

Playing truant is what the new entrants do best, some are in the so-called 'professional' categories with serious attitude problems. They know that they will not be easily dismissed so they moonlight until they are told to leave.

But by then, the government has spent thousands paying them for nothing. So where does the blame lie?

We pick the incompetent to lead, that is why the smart leave. So as long as we have the dumb leading, the civil service will be a mass of ardent supporters and followers, and not people who can work.

Ahbengkia: Ali Hamsa, are you not the chief secretary to the government? Why wait 400 days before taking action? This is the problem with the civil service.

If an intern has not turned up for two days, action should have been taken.

Vijay47: Ahbengkia, this is exactly what I also was wondering about. These doctors should have been sacked long before the 400 days. By the way, were they still paid for the months that they were absent?

Ali Hamsa, you must be a disciple of our dear attorney-general (AG) Mohamed Apandi Ali since you have unwittingly revealed that you and government department heads like you are part of the cause for the deplorable state of affairs in the Malaysian ‘uncivil’ service.

First, you rush to the defence of the doctors who disappear from duty, painting them as poor souls brought to their knees by "work stress". Are doctors the only ones suffering from work pressure, how about engineers, accountants, taxi drivers, or coffee shop assistants?

Secondly, you coolly confess that some were missing for 400 days before action was taken against them. It is equally possible that nobody knew that these officers were lost. You seem proud about this.

Then, you go into denial, claiming that ‘civil servant’ is merely a variable term and the total lurking in local shores is not as huge as claimed.

Ahh! Now I understand why PM Najib Razak's Parliament attendance record is only 7 percent - must be acute "work stress".

Prof: Not the business of the state to impose religion

Drngsc: Australian National University’s Professor James Piscatori has hit the nail on the head. “The big problem for Islam is who speaks for Islam"? As a result, you have radical Islam. And they are also speaking for Islam.

Most religions have their earthly authorities that their believers respect and follow, like the Pope, the head of the Anglican Church, the Dalai Lama. These people are not perfect, but they guide the religion and are highly respected so there is some form of authority.

In Islam, it does look like there are so many voices, and some rather extreme and radical. Often, even the so-called ‘moderate voices’ across many nations are not consistent. Therein lies the problem.

David Dass: Piscatori makes sense. There is not one view of religious doctrine. There are differences within the larger groups.

We see the bloody fights between the Shiites and the Sunnis, between the Kurds and everybody else, between the Yazidis and the Alawites. Closer to home we saw the debates on the position of the hadiths in interpretation of scripture and others.

And as he says, we have an increasingly educated elite who will use their intelligence and learning to understand scripture. And we are a diverse people with many religions. It’s better for us to stay with our constitution.

OMG!: Refugees flee the Islamic world because of fighting and bloodshed, for example the Syrians.

Also because, unlike the First World (which doesn't include a single Islamic nation but does include possibly three Asian nations - Japan, Singapore and South Korea), the Islamic or Muslim-majority nations generally apparently do not treat their religious and other minorities well.

It's wonderful how the truth does set you free, though some are in chains (of falsehoods, factoids and ‘alternative facts’), scowling and making angry comments. Free yourself.

Hang Babeuf: Rational liberal doctrine holds that it is “Not the business of the state to impose religion”.

But many in Malaysia do not accept and in fact do not understand, are totally ignorant of, rational liberal doctrine. They hold to the contrary view and position.

That is why they seek not only (as until recently) to try and urge that other view upon the state but now work with and through and from inside/within the state and its ruling party and councils to impose their contrary doctrine on everybody, whether they like it or not.

So, “What is to be done?”

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