Saturday, December 27, 2008
Dr. Lim Jeng Min, Prison Doctor and his "Hypocratic" Oath
Readers of this blog who are unfamiliar with the goings on in Lee Kuan Yew's
Singapore, may think reading the comments that there are many who think
Singapore is a democracy based on the rule of law. The reader is warned that
they may be Singapore government employees whose job is to discredit those
who criticize Lee Kuan Yew's authoritarian rule. Please use your discretion
as to how much weight you will give these comments.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Having been sentenced to serve 8 weeks in a Singapore's Queenstown Prison
from Sept 20, 2008 to Nov 20, 2008 for having the temerity to criticize a
judge in this blog about her conduct of a case where Singapore's strongman
Lee Kuan Yew was engaged in his usual pastime of suing his critics for
defamation of character in his courts, I had occasion against my will to see
the prison doctor almost everyday during my last 2 weeks or so before my
release.
Not that there was anything wrong with me but how can you argue with a
prison warden when you are a prisoner. Almost everyday, a warden used to
open my cell ordering me to go with him down the flight of stairs to see the
doctor. He wore a name tag on his shirt, "Dr. Lim Jeng Min, Medical Officer,
Singapore Prison Service". He is a small man, small in stature and height,
Chinese by race with black hair sticking up and a black birth mark just
under his nose running to his lip which gave the aspect of Adolph Hitler.
Not athletic as if he never played any sport in his life or as if, with his
tender hands, he had spent his entire life in an office.
The rule was for prisoners to be handcuffed while they appear before a
doctor. The warden stands next to you watching.
The purpose of my visits to him was to have me weighed and recorded and to
check my blood pressure. Each time I was weighed it was with the handcuffs
on. Quite often, he forgets to deduct the weight of the handcuffs which I
came to know was 500 grams. So after a while he decided to take the weight
as it is with the weight of the handcuffs. I was progressively losing weight
due to the unpalatable food, and the doctor's purpose was to see how much
weight I am losing and not what my weigh actually was.
As to the blood pressure, he claimed my blood pressure was high and once
ordered that I have some contraptions strapped to my chest to have my heart
beat taken. There is a medical term for it but I had forgotten.
The almost daily routine would be to have me sit next to him and a strap
wound on my arm to check my blood pressure. Taking it once wasn't enough for
him. He would repeat it again and again, several times in a row and tell me
that my blood pressure was high.
After that he asked if I wanted any medicine. I would say no. I told him not
once but repeatedly that I don't need any treatment and I wanted to be left
alone. I was fine. It was my body, not his. I was being kept there against
my will. I don't need any treatment. Please leave me alone, I told him. But
being a prisoner, there is nothing you could do. I was forced to se him
again and again, day after day to take that confounded blood pressure and my
weight.
Not satisfied with having me brought to him day after day for the same
routine against my will, he then said I have to be taken to Changi Hospital
to be examined by a doctor there for a second opinion. I am not a doctor but
I don't think taking a man's blood pressure is rocket science. Surely it is
not so hard to find out a man's blood pressure. There was no need to have me
be transported in prison transport to Changi Hospital for this.
But not with this man, Dr. Lim Jeng Min. He was determined to give the run
around. He was determined it seemed to make it difficult, when there was
nothing wrong with me. If I knew that, surely that should be sufficient.
So I was to be taken to Changi Hospital. I said I did not want to go. When I
refused the Officer Commanding of cell Block A, G Savier, an Indian, came to
see me. He said I had to go whether I liked it or not. He said if I did not
go, I will be punished, which I assumed to be solitary confinement and that
my term in prison will be extended, and other threats were bandied about.
Having no choice, I said I will go. But listen to this. I was to change into
a prison jump suit; you know the type you see in prison movies, orange
pajama type trousers and long sleeves for the trip. If that is not enough, I
was to be shackled, which means handcuffs behind you, and a chain running
down to your back to your feet connected to handcuffs at your ankles,
escorted by an armed prison warder, gripping your arm! This was a bit too
much. I said I will go, but without the shackles and chains. Again, no
amount of persuasion would move them. The threats from G Savier were the
same. If I did not submit to their demands, it will be punishment. So what
choice did I have? I changed into the orange monkey prison jump suit and was
shackled and chained. At that time, anyone looking at me, could have
reasonabley assumed that I had indeed slit the throats of 20 people in cold
blood.
Restrained by shackles, one cannot walk in normal strides. You have to walk
in short strides or skip to walk, assisted by the armed guard. I get helped
into the prison transport, a van with no windows on the far side with
seating space only for one, separated by a locked partition where the armed
prison escort sits outside. Since there are no windows, obviously you cannot
look out. It is completely dark, no lights.
Your indignity is worsened when you reach the hospital. You are paraded
walking in short steps, shackled and chained through the hospital concourse
and waiting areas where there are many people, patients visitor's, their
families and children, who all look at you as if you were Jack the Ripper.
Who would blame them? After all you in a prison suite with shackles and
chains about you and being escorted with an armed prison officer gripping
your arm, as if you will still manage to escape even though thoroughly
chained and shackled.
After going through that indignity, I am brought before the Changi Hospital
doctor. He takes my blood pressure with the strap around my arm. He tells me
there is nothing wrong with me. My blood pressure is fine. After various
other medical questions, the examination is over. I have to once again be
paraded in my prisoner's attire through the throngs of people in the
hospital to the van.
After returning to the prison, Dr. Lim Jeng Min, goes through the report of
the Changi doctor. But Dr. Lim refuses to be satisfied. He then has his
kicks with me, by making every person there to take my blood pressure, again
and again. He asks the hospital technician there to take it. The man is a
Filipino. After that he asks a Chinese woman clerk to take my blood
pressure. He then asked another hospital technician who works there Mr.
Jeganathan to take it. Mr. Jeganathan rightfully refuses. Dr. Lim Jeng Min's
purpose was no other than to humiliate me. To show me that he can do
anything he wants whenever he wants. What he tells me is something
different. He wanted to be sure, he says, that his diagnosis that I had high
blood pressure is accurate. So he says it is necessary to have every person
at his prison clinic to have a go at taking my blood pressure. In fact he
even asked a warden standing by to try his hand at taking my blood pressure,
but the man rightly refused. Dr. Lim is a man, who obviously thinks he can
do anything he wants to a prisoner because he is helpless.
http://singaporedissident.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2008-12-29T20:45:00-08:00&max-results=7
Dr. Lim Jeng Min, Prison Doctor and his "Hypocratic" Oath
Readers of this blog who are unfamiliar with the goings on in Lee Kuan Yew's
Singapore, may think reading the comments that there are many who think
Singapore is a democracy based on the rule of law. The reader is warned that
they may be Singapore government employees whose job is to discredit those
who criticize Lee Kuan Yew's authoritarian rule. Please use your discretion
as to how much weight you will give these comments.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Having been sentenced to serve 8 weeks in a Singapore's Queenstown Prison
from Sept 20, 2008 to Nov 20, 2008 for having the temerity to criticize a
judge in this blog about her conduct of a case where Singapore's strongman
Lee Kuan Yew was engaged in his usual pastime of suing his critics for
defamation of character in his courts, I had occasion against my will to see
the prison doctor almost everyday during my last 2 weeks or so before my
release.
Not that there was anything wrong with me but how can you argue with a
prison warden when you are a prisoner. Almost everyday, a warden used to
open my cell ordering me to go with him down the flight of stairs to see the
doctor. He wore a name tag on his shirt, "Dr. Lim Jeng Min, Medical Officer,
Singapore Prison Service". He is a small man, small in stature and height,
Chinese by race with black hair sticking up and a black birth mark just
under his nose running to his lip which gave the aspect of Adolph Hitler.
Not athletic as if he never played any sport in his life or as if, with his
tender hands, he had spent his entire life in an office.
The rule was for prisoners to be handcuffed while they appear before a
doctor. The warden stands next to you watching.
The purpose of my visits to him was to have me weighed and recorded and to
check my blood pressure. Each time I was weighed it was with the handcuffs
on. Quite often, he forgets to deduct the weight of the handcuffs which I
came to know was 500 grams. So after a while he decided to take the weight
as it is with the weight of the handcuffs. I was progressively losing weight
due to the unpalatable food, and the doctor's purpose was to see how much
weight I am losing and not what my weigh actually was.
As to the blood pressure, he claimed my blood pressure was high and once
ordered that I have some contraptions strapped to my chest to have my heart
beat taken. There is a medical term for it but I had forgotten.
The almost daily routine would be to have me sit next to him and a strap
wound on my arm to check my blood pressure. Taking it once wasn't enough for
him. He would repeat it again and again, several times in a row and tell me
that my blood pressure was high.
After that he asked if I wanted any medicine. I would say no. I told him not
once but repeatedly that I don't need any treatment and I wanted to be left
alone. I was fine. It was my body, not his. I was being kept there against
my will. I don't need any treatment. Please leave me alone, I told him. But
being a prisoner, there is nothing you could do. I was forced to se him
again and again, day after day to take that confounded blood pressure and my
weight.
Not satisfied with having me brought to him day after day for the same
routine against my will, he then said I have to be taken to Changi Hospital
to be examined by a doctor there for a second opinion. I am not a doctor but
I don't think taking a man's blood pressure is rocket science. Surely it is
not so hard to find out a man's blood pressure. There was no need to have me
be transported in prison transport to Changi Hospital for this.
But not with this man, Dr. Lim Jeng Min. He was determined to give the run
around. He was determined it seemed to make it difficult, when there was
nothing wrong with me. If I knew that, surely that should be sufficient.
So I was to be taken to Changi Hospital. I said I did not want to go. When I
refused the Officer Commanding of cell Block A, G Savier, an Indian, came to
see me. He said I had to go whether I liked it or not. He said if I did not
go, I will be punished, which I assumed to be solitary confinement and that
my term in prison will be extended, and other threats were bandied about.
Having no choice, I said I will go. But listen to this. I was to change into
a prison jump suit; you know the type you see in prison movies, orange
pajama type trousers and long sleeves for the trip. If that is not enough, I
was to be shackled, which means handcuffs behind you, and a chain running
down to your back to your feet connected to handcuffs at your ankles,
escorted by an armed prison warder, gripping your arm! This was a bit too
much. I said I will go, but without the shackles and chains. Again, no
amount of persuasion would move them. The threats from G Savier were the
same. If I did not submit to their demands, it will be punishment. So what
choice did I have? I changed into the orange monkey prison jump suit and was
shackled and chained. At that time, anyone looking at me, could have
reasonabley assumed that I had indeed slit the throats of 20 people in cold
blood.
Restrained by shackles, one cannot walk in normal strides. You have to walk
in short strides or skip to walk, assisted by the armed guard. I get helped
into the prison transport, a van with no windows on the far side with
seating space only for one, separated by a locked partition where the armed
prison escort sits outside. Since there are no windows, obviously you cannot
look out. It is completely dark, no lights.
Your indignity is worsened when you reach the hospital. You are paraded
walking in short steps, shackled and chained through the hospital concourse
and waiting areas where there are many people, patients visitor's, their
families and children, who all look at you as if you were Jack the Ripper.
Who would blame them? After all you in a prison suite with shackles and
chains about you and being escorted with an armed prison officer gripping
your arm, as if you will still manage to escape even though thoroughly
chained and shackled.
After going through that indignity, I am brought before the Changi Hospital
doctor. He takes my blood pressure with the strap around my arm. He tells me
there is nothing wrong with me. My blood pressure is fine. After various
other medical questions, the examination is over. I have to once again be
paraded in my prisoner's attire through the throngs of people in the
hospital to the van.
After returning to the prison, Dr. Lim Jeng Min, goes through the report of
the Changi doctor. But Dr. Lim refuses to be satisfied. He then has his
kicks with me, by making every person there to take my blood pressure, again
and again. He asks the hospital technician there to take it. The man is a
Filipino. After that he asks a Chinese woman clerk to take my blood
pressure. He then asked another hospital technician who works there Mr.
Jeganathan to take it. Mr. Jeganathan rightfully refuses. Dr. Lim Jeng Min's
purpose was no other than to humiliate me. To show me that he can do
anything he wants whenever he wants. What he tells me is something
different. He wanted to be sure, he says, that his diagnosis that I had high
blood pressure is accurate. So he says it is necessary to have every person
at his prison clinic to have a go at taking my blood pressure. In fact he
even asked a warden standing by to try his hand at taking my blood pressure,
but the man rightly refused. Dr. Lim is a man, who obviously thinks he can
do anything he wants to a prisoner because he is helpless.
http://singaporedissident.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2008-12-29T20:45:00-08:00&max-results=7
