The sole veterinary medicine faculty in a public university here boasts of being the only veterinary school in the world that has been awarded the ISO 9001 certification. Wanting to know the basis of the certification, I researched a bit to find out what it stood for. Imagine my disdain when the International Organisation For Standardisation's website stated:

'For consumers, conformity of products and services to International Standards provides assurance about their quality, safety and reliability.'

Based on this, I believe the veterinary medicine faculty in question does not qualify at all for the certification. Firstly, personnel at the faculty's veterinary hospital failed to detect that a kitten, brought in by a friend, was FIV positive (feline AIDs) in spite of it having the telltale sores around its mouth.

My friend who had rescued the kitten from the streets had taken it there for a thorough medical check-up and the necessary jabs. Besides not being able to tell that the kitten (Coco) was FIV positive, the unsuspecting vet also went ahead and inoculated the poor creature.

To inoculate a FIV positive feline was literally exposing it to an infection, which could be fatal. Luckily, Coco came out of the ordeal unscathed but had anything untoward happened, my dear friend, who had grown to love the little thing, would have been devastated and inconsolable.

Therefore, this hospital had failed miserably to ensure Coco's safety and was unreliable in its diagnostic services. And off course, there's my late canine companion Mimi 'Qoink' Mae who would have been spared of much suffering had the vet we consulted there, diagnosed her condition first before advising on the mode of treatment.

I have to also confess that I was in awe of the consultant as I was made to believe that she was the ultimate expert in small animal (pets) healthcare in Malaysia. What transpired next was the death of Mimi.

So, my question here is, on what grounds did Sirim accord this veterinary public hospital the ISO 9001 certification given that it has rendered sub-standard services on more than one occasion?

Of course, I may be wrong in stating that the hospital does not deserve the certification but who actually knows how these things work here in Malaysia?