Did you know?

Phew had a relatively busy week last week and finally managed to catch my breath over the long weekend. Surely am glad that im actually having a one week break, much needed to catch up on studies which im admittedly falling behind in. And on a separate note its nice to be home, after a long arduous week in uni i flew home on friday night to the comforts of home. Home can be anywhere its where the family is that really matters to me.

Anyways in the last paragraph if you'd have the basic literacy skill you'd notice i'd mention that i was actually busy tacking a hectic schedule over the week. As medical student apart from the many strenuous hours of mugging that we put in its also about at times a relatively hectic schedule of lectures, medical museum sessions, clinical skills lesson and a few other elements in the curriculum which supposedly enhances our learning experience. But this week like all semester 4 student of IMU we were broken into smaller groups and sent off to different maternal care goverment clinics around Selangor and Negeri Sembilan area.

I was assigned to Seremban's Polyclinic. I wont bore you with the details of that visit but would probably share something about the public healthcare system which i till now never seen off.

Call me ignorant or anything but i never did knew how hard our government is actually trying to improve the healthcare system of our developing nation. Surely were all familiar with all the grim stories that make the headlines of our newspapers about doctor negligence in the public hospitals, the goverment milking every bit of energy out of the housemens and the cracks in our healthcare system.

Sure its easy to jump on the side that points the finger of accusation and hurl criticisms at the government for not doing enough for us. I admittedly was like that in actual fact until last week when during our clinic visits after the usual grilling session of questions by our attending tutors we were sent out to observe the daily routine of a nurse in carrying out their house to house visit for prenatal and postnatal mothers. But for this regular visits we could have been sent out to urban clinics for this observation but the clinics that were chosen was handpicked by the university as it was in a suburban community.

And to prove the point of this I heard the story first hand from my friends which followed a nurse to a construction site's makeshift settlement to follow up on a mother and her newly born child. Tell me that isnt dedication! But i was a little dissapointed i'd have to say that i didnt manage to see such a unique site on my turn but nonetheless the same dedication was dawned by the nurse that day when we visited a mother and her 8 day old child in their home in a housing area near Seremban.

Nurses here are in charge of a routine follow up for mothers prenatal and antenatal and the frequency of their visits depends on their living conditions. For single mothers or mothers with previously known complications the number of visits would be more.

checking for jaundice

Nurses here check the mothers health from blood pressure,diet and whether she's coping well in taking care of her newborn. Of course the obligatory check on the newborns weight, sleeping and eating pattern is also monitored.

After witnessing this small act of compassion and dedication i'd definitely have to give it up for the governments efforts in improving our healthcare system. It may not always be about bringing in the latest cutting edge technology in surgery or building more hospitals with more beds but every small efforts takes things a long way.

Ps: did you know the maternal mortality ratio in 2008 in Malaysia was 31 per 100,000 live births making it one of the lowest in the Asian region?(WHO)

-im in no way obliged in writing this post and not citing any bias to any party but its just a matter of opinion.