A friend of Singaporean Justinian Tan, who died after being struck by a car in Johor Baru last Friday, believed that "miscommunication" resulted in their belief that Sultanah Aminah Hospital required an upfront payment to treat the victim, even though it was an emergency.

According to Straits Times, Joshua De Rozario said hospital staff spoke Bahasa Malaysia, resulting in a communication breakdown.

"At that point of time, what I heard was that we had to pay and in cash - it couldn't be in card. We didn't have a large sum of money on us and we had to run around finding an ATM. From our point of view then, it felt like we had to pay first...