It Happened Again - Its whom you know in Singapore , that counts

My mum fell in the shower on Sunday morning and because she had a cut on her forehead I decided to call the ambulance. She arrived at the National University Hospital at 8.30am. Because of the H1N1 virus scare we were not allowed to be with her as they wheeled her into the A&E; so we had to wait outside as they tended to her inside. I tried to recall whom I knew who still worked at the hospital with me 25 years ago when a team of less than 20 people worked their butts off trying to meet a seemingly impossible deadline of opening the first privatized hospital in Singapore in 6 months under the able leadership of Mr. Khaw Boon Wan ( the Health Minister) who was then the CEO of NUH. I was not going to all anyone up for "help" because again I had faith that the systems and processes would be in place to make things move and work efficiently afterall they have been in business for over 20 years now. I could not have been more wrong......... After 2 hours of waiting and not knowing what was happening to my mum inside I decided to ask a very nicely dressed gentleman standing at the entrance of the A&E , clipboard in hand and looking very officious, what was happening. I asked him if he was the A&E Supervisor and in a very unsure voice he said " sort of "..............ok ; I told myself this was going to be a long day........ anyway, I told him my mother was inside and we had arrived by ambulance 2 hours ago and I was worried about not knowing what was happening to her; he said he would check and returned immediately to say that she was lying comfortably waiting to see the doctor. So 2 hours had lapsed and she still had not seen the doctor. Another hour went by and nothing happened so I asked the nice man what was happening and he went in the check again. This time he said my mother would be the next patient to see the doctor. The next person we spoke to was the doctor who came out to explain to us that he would be running some tests and that it would be a couple of hours before he got the results. He also said that there was a high liklihood that my mother would be hospitalized for observation. So my question at this point was, if my mother was to be hospitalized anyway whydid they need to wait for the results before she was even assigned a room? At 12-something a clerk came out to infom us that they had assigned a room for my mother and I went to do the necessary for the admission . I was told that the room was however not ready as the person occupying it had not left yet and the room needed to be cleaned; that would take a couple of hours. The clerk advised that we should go for lunch first. I told her to make sure my mother had something to eat as her last meal was breakfast at 7am. We came back from lunch at 1.30pm and waited till 4pm. I asked if the room was ready and the clerk said we could go to the ward to wait for my mother. She arrived at the room at 4.30pm, 8 hours since arriving by ambulance at 8.30am!!! I called a friend, who is a Head of one of the Departments at NUH the next day and told him that my mother was warded in the hospital. He met me later that day and I told him everything that had transpired. My mother happened to be having a brain scan when he arrived. My friend was the Head of the X-ray Department when we were colleagues in 1985 so we took a walk to the Department as my mother had been gone for over an hour. We found my mother lying on a trolly, in a corridor, in the X-ray department. Her pyjamas were soaked with saline solution and some sticky fluid they had spilled on her when they were doing the scan. She had been lying there for the last half hour waiting for someone to push her back to the ward. It as not a pretty sight. Within 3 minutes of my friend speaking to the department supervisor, my mother was being wheeled back to the ward. He then brought me to see the chief Radiologist , an ex-colleague too who personally read my mother's scan and explained the results to me. I am hoping my mother will be discharged today. If not, I have my friend's cellphone number...........
SO the moral of the story is.........if you have any strings in Singapore; pull it or you will be at the mercy of the system !!