What a sight it must have been. A wheelchair bound ethnic Indian lawyer from a multi-racial (but predominantly ethnic Chinese) party together with an ethnic Malay doctor from an opposition party were in High court to make an application to get Dr. Basmullah out of jail.
This is the Malaysia I like to see. Where it’s not about race but about helping one another, especially when another fellow Malaysian has been dealt with unjustly.
It is most unfortunate that the MMA was not the one seen to apply to bail Dr. Basmullah out. Never mind if he was not a member of the MMA but the MMA must be seen to be a champion of Malaysian doctors’ rights. If not, who wants to join the MMA?
Perhaps there has been too much in-fighting in the MMA of late but now that there has been overwhelming votes cast for Dr. Quek as President perhaps once again the MMA will be of one voice and a stronger doctors’ association.
It also makes me wonder if you give some people too much power, they will become arrogant, they will abuse the power and they will think your, my, our opinions and voices do not matter.
The PHFSA is just one example of such a situation. This is a law which was passed in Parliament despite the reservations and objections of doctors who feared they would be criminalized.
They were reassured by the ex-Minister of Health who had claimed it would primarily serve the purpose of weeding out bogus doctors but not criminalize legitimate ones. Despite the spin doctoring we read in the main stream papers, Dr. Basmullah was NOT operating an illegal clinic for 10 years. He was a legitimate doctor running a legitimate clinic until the powers that be decided to change the rules in 2006 with an Act which has huge potential for abuse of power.
Such power we see now that the doctors’ fears have been realised and a legitimate doctor has been jailed not because he harmed a patient. Not because he was caught in a porn video, bribed, raped, robbed, embezzled, cheated, was illegally caught with a million dollars in some airport or worse still blew up someone with C4. Nay, in the Malaysia we live today, we see people get away with some of these things as long as you are on the right side of the fence. On the other hand, a humble doctor goes to jail because a piece of paper makes him now a criminal.
Sorry to be a little political these days but I am concerned for my nation. I saw this in Haris Ibrahim’s blog which I want to highlight here as it’s a great poster. The PHFSA should be amongst those things.