MESSING UP THE HOSPITALS

 

OutSyed The Box

Sunday, July 26, 2026

MESSING UP THE HOSPITALS

KSN directed immediate measures to address critical issues at PPUM
called for a meeting to discuss the matter
PPUM is a teaching hospital
immediate action on decisions reached 
discussion involved MOHE, MOH, the VC of UM and PPUM admin
policy-related issues arising from public complaints
including long waiting times
challenges in delivery of clinical services
issues related to skilled manpower and specialist expertise
— Bernama

MY COMMENTS: 

First of all the Vice Chancellor will not know anything about managing a hospital. Managing a hospital and managing a university are two different things. So they are asking a teacher to manage patients, doctors, nurses, treating the sick. This idea of teaching hospitals is of course a tried and true system since modern medicine was invented. 

But it does not mean they cannot screw it up. However today in Malaysia not only teaching hospitals but too many government hospitals are facing too many "challenges". 

Firstly the acute shortages of doctors and specialists is a direct result of the really stupid and way past shelf life ketuanan policies where numbers of doctors are still subject to some quota number stuck on somebody's wall. So now we all pay the price. And the price paid by the politicians is that you will get kicked out again and again at the next polls. Its as simple as that.

Then there is not enough money to pay for all the medical services. The gomen just announced that they are cutting RM3.0 billion from medical services.  Report: Treasury Wants RM3b Cut To Health Ministry’s 2026 Budget By CodeBlue | 29 April 2026

Despite no money there is wastage / leakage in procurement, building new facilities, follow through services etc. Building new facilities is crucial. The gomen must build even more facilities. But the wastage and the leakages occur through overpricing, who gets the construction contracts and things like that. Old ketuanan style. Nothing has changed. 

I know one gomen hospital where they would tell some classes of patients that their medication would be delivered to their houses - for free. Wow! I know because I  was a beneficiary.  So someone must benefit (projek dan kontrak)  from  getting the contract to deliver the meds to peoples' houses. There must be thousands of home deliveries. 

Lately they have changed this a little. I must pay a fee of RM10.00 if I want them to send the meds to my house. (You can also pick up the meds at the hospital pharmacy but you may have to wait - sometimes for hours). So I pay RM10 and the guy sends the meds to my house. But  I live 40 km away and I can assure you the cost of the delivery will be more than RM10.00. Even the packaging itself is expensive. First there is a cold pack for some meds, then they pack it inside sterile plastic, sometimes there is styrofoam and then the whole thing is put inside a nice cardboard box.  And it must be delivered by car with air conditioning. All this costs money.  Then toll, petrol plus the delivery driver's salary. I used to tell them, "Look I am already here let me pick up my medication from the pharmacy". They will say, 'Takpa Encik. You go home. We will send it to your house'.  As I said someone has to benefit, someone makes money from the projek dan kontrak to provide the delivery services. This is wastage.  And they want to cut RM3.0 billion from the medical services budget. 

Back to the UMMC issue.

The oldest teaching hospitals in Europe are hundreds of years old.  In Holland the Dutch University Medical Centre (UMC) system is a distinctive model in which the medical school, teaching hospital, specialist care, and biomedical research are integrated into a single institution. Rather than a university merely being affiliated with a hospital, the hospital and medical faculty operate as one organisation.

Perhaps this is the model they are trying to establish here. But it will not work as well here. (I have a suggestion). Here the culture is different. Here they are not as professional. Here, regardless of the very high qualifications, the staff still behave like kampong people.  I get really irritated when the doctor refuses to talk or even smile at me. And then you have the village idiots who gossip with the other staff about personal matters, while treating the patient. As though the patient is a nuisance and they are doing you a favour. And I have seen the staff at hospitals play with their smartphones instead of attending to the patients. So the professionalism is lacking. It is still kampong behaviour. 

But not all. The pharmacists, nurses and staff who went out of their way to assist me. But these were individual examples of par excellence.  It is not built into the system. The system as a whole does not guarantee excellence. It is almost random. Like it must be your lucky day. Or not your lucky day. 

Believe me I dont expect the KSN or the KSUs to understand all this. Too much reading on a Sunday. Or on any day. Retirement is close anyway.

Here is my suggestion: place the administration of all the teaching hospitals (staffing, procurement, maintenance etc) under the Ministry of Health. Create a department - Department of Teaching Hospitals. WHY? Because the MOH are the content experts. Or they shud be. They know best how to own, operate/manage and maintain a hospital.  The universiti VCs do not have the skills to manage hospitals.

All staffing, procurement, maintenance, ops shud be under the MOH - like any other hospital. Except the teaching and the curricula part should be left to the medical faculty of the university that is affiliated with that hospital. Plus the university shud have an input on the selection, promotion etc of the teaching staff. Leave the rest to the MOH.

The UMMC is not the only teaching hospital that has problems. The problems become more acute when these outfits become 'semi-privatised'. This means they start behaving like private hospitals and charge the patients very high fees. How exhorbitant? RM10,000 for an angiogram, RM40,000 if a stent is also involved  (but that was NOT a teaching hospital - just a gomen hospital turned 'semi-private'.) 

I think these gomen hospitals turned semi-private are getting carried away. They charge so much money, like many of the other predatory private hospitals we have in the country. The difference is the gomen hospital was set up using MY MONEY!! I already paid for the building of the hospital, for the doctors and nurses salaries, for the medicines etc. You use my money to build a hospital and to pay yourselves salaries and then you charge me money again - for the second time.

So what is the final outcome of all this? Kick them out. I am not going to vote for these idiots. Just kick them out.  Negeri Sembilan is coming up in SIX days. KICK THEM OUT.

MUST WATCH: THE MALAYAN EMERGENCY

 

OutSyed The Box

Saturday, July 25, 2026

MUST WATCH: THE MALAYAN EMERGENCY

 

MY COMMENTS:  I  have a collection of books about the Malayan Emergency, which I have read. I totally disagree with the story surrounding the Emergency. The Malayan Emergency was not what we have been told about. 

In 1945 after the end of World War 2 Britain was almost bankrupt. During the postwar reconstruction which began almost immediately  there was a boom in raw materials, including rubber and tin.  The rubber estates and tin mines in colonial Malaya began churning profits for British commercial interests as well as tax revenues for the British Crown. In no time Malaya was the single largest revenue earner for the entire British Empire. Then in 1946 Dato Onn organised all the Malays, he torpedoed the idea of the Malayan Union, he established UMNO and immediately began agitating for Malayan independence. The Independence movement picked up steam quite quickly. This made the British very uncomfortable. 

And - more importantly - on 17 August 1945 Soekarno had declared independence for Indonesia. Which resulted in the Indonesian War of Independence which lasted for FOUR years until the Dutch gave up and withdrew in 1949. There was serious fighting in Indonesia but there were no Dutch soldiers to do any fighting. Because the Dutch had lost Indonesia to the Japanese, Holland had been occupied by the Germans and there was no more Dutch colonial influence. So after the Japanese surrender, the British who had landed about 100,000 troops  to reoccupy Malaya and Singapore  offered to help the Dutch regain Indonesia. (Very white and neighbourly colonials).

British troops from Malaya were sent to Indonesia to fight Soekarno. The British Royal Air Force took off from air bases in Singapore, Johor, Melaka to bomb Indonesia. The British did not do all that for free.  The British secured concessions from the Dutch to exploit oil and gas deposits in Indonesia. Plus other goodies of course. 

Because the British seriously needed the colonial revenues to help prop up London.  Then in 1946 Dato Onn Jaafar was very successful in organising the Malays to defeat the Malayan Union, he founded UMNO in 1946 as a 'united Malays national organisation' and he wanted independence for Malaya - all this in 1946.

The British had a major trump card in their pocket - the single supreme leader of almost all the Communist organisations in Malaya at that time was a British secret agent. At that time 1945 - 1948 there were the:

Communist Party of Malaya (CPM / MCP)

Malayan People's Anti-Japanese Army (MPAJA)

Malayan People's Anti-Japanese Ex-Service Comrades' Association (MPAJA Ex-Service Comrades' Association)

Malayan Democratic Union (MDU) – not a communist party, but worked closely with the CPM in the constitutional struggle.

Pan-Malayan Federation of Trade Unions (PMFTU) – communist-dominated.

New Democratic Youth League – CPM youth front.

Women's Federation – CPM women's front.

Min Yuen – underground civilian support organisation.

Malayan National Liberation Army (MNLA - mentioned in the video)

etc etc. (The list is not exhaustive).

The name of the supreme leader was the Vietnamese Chinese Loi Tek. Also known as:

• Loi Tek / Loi Teck
• Lai Tek
• Lai Teck
• Lai Te
• Loi Tak
• Mr. Wright (or simply Wright)
• Light (sometimes used in English sources)
• Chang Hung (also rendered Chang Hong) (who signed the Blantan Agreement)
• Wong Kim Geok
• Lee Soong
• Vietnamese names attributed to him
• Phạm Văn Đắc
• Hoàng A Nhạc (also written Hoang A Nhac)
• Nguyễn Văn Long (reported by Leon Comber)
• Lai Rac
• Trương Phước Đạt (or Truong Phuoc Dat) – before he appeared in Malaya in 1936.
• Other reported aliases
• Wong Siu-tong
• Lao Wu Huang
• Huynh Kim Ngoc
• Ly Minh Son
• Huang Kuo-
• Total number of aliases
• Japanese historian Yoji Akashi and later researchers have suggested that Lai Teck may have used more than 50 aliases during his career as a communist organizer and intelligence agent.
• His many identities reflected his extraordinary career as a triple agent, successively serving the French Sûreté, the British Special Branch, the Japanese Kempeitai, while simultaneously rising to become Secretary-General of the Communist Party of Malaya.

Then in March 1947 the British informed their master spy Lai Tek that his cover had been blown. So on 6 March 1947 Lai Tek escaped to Singapore and beyond. He also emptied the funds belonging to the Communist Party.  The Communists in Malaya were totally embarrassed, insulted and made fools of. The British had totally played them like playing a guitar. 

Just over 15 months later on 16 June 1948, the Communists launched those revenge attacks against the British planters in Sungei Siput in Perak and killed  Arthur Walker,  John Allison and Ian Christian.

Two days later on 18th May 1948 the British declared the Malayan Emergency. The young woman in the video Prof Rachel Leow, professor of History at Cambridge University raises the question (and the doubts) why did the British have to declare a state of Emergency over the whole country over the shooting of three planters in just one area Sungei Siput, Perak?  She says it was such a disproportionate response for the British to despatch 40,000 British troops to Malaya, organise 250,000 Home Guardsmen and mobilise another 60,000 Commonwealth troops over the death of three British rubber planters. It was not an all out shooting war by the Communists. It was just a Communist hit squad that was sent to shoot those planters. 

Well we can argue till the cows come home. But once the Brits declared the Emergency in 1946 the whole idea about Independence, Dato Onn's ground work was all pushed to the back burner for another 11 years.    British revenues were intact for another 11 years - until 1957.

And why did the British agree to our Independence in 1957? Again it was money. After the end of the Korean War in 1954, the rubber prices had crashed. There was an economic slowdown around the world. Colonial revenue from Malaya was also affected. The British had to fork out money to pay the salaries of Civil Servants in Malaya. So they cut us loose and "gave" us independence on 31 August 1957.

Chin Peng said Lai Tek was killed by his communist comrades in Bangkok.  When I was in school in Ipoh (early 1970s) I positively remember the Straits Times carrying a news report that Lai Tek the British agent had escaped to London. 

More than 600 US military service members injured since Iran War began in February

More than 600 US military service members injured since Iran War began in February

5 hours ago
Brandon Drenon


Getty Images


At least 624 US military service members have been wounded since President Donald Trump ordered strikes against Iran in February, according to the Pentagon's most recent update on 25 July.

Among those wounded, 417 are attributed to Operation Epic Fury, while 207 are attributed to "Overseas Operations".

The US and Iran agreed to a ceasefire in April and signed a Memorandum of Understanding in June, but attacks from both sides have occurred throughout.

Last week, the Pentagon revised its figures on those injured and killed in the war, taking the names of four who died in Operation Epic Fury and moving them to the death count for Overseas Operations.

On the Pentagon's Defense Analysis Casualty System, the death count for Operation Epic Fury, the name given to the initial attack, was listed at 18 as late as Tuesday, and 482 wounded.

At some point, four of those names were removed, and on Thursday the death toll was reduced to 14.

The four deceased soldiers' names now appear on Overseas Operations, which says it measures "casualties starting July 7th 2026". They are the only four listed deaths.

The unexplained, silent changing of casualty statistics - for both the wounded and the dead - was criticised as undermining transparency.

"The administration seems to have a real hard time being honest about what is going on - not just about casualties, but about the whole war in general," said Lt Gen Ben Hodges, who commanded US forces in Europe when Trump first came to power.

In a post on X, Republican congressman Thomas Massie, a frequent Trump critic, called splitting the conflict into categories an "absurd ruse".

The BBC has reached out to the Department of Defense for comment.

On X, Pentagon spokespman Sean Parnell described the shifting figures as "temporary data disruptions".

"These site anomalies are currently being resolved in coordination with the Military Services," the statement said.

In a post on Truth Social, on 21 July, Trump wrote that the "Iran Military Conflict" had claimed 18 lives.

The category "Overseas Operations" appeared for the first time on the Pentagon's website on Sunday, the Associated Press reported.

It included the names of the four Army soldiers who died recently and counted 207 for those wounded. It is unclear if all 207 were injured as a result of the Iran war.

The name changes appeared to reflect the four US soldiers who died in July, after the interim deal signed by Trump last month began to break down, and after the president had declared the ceasefire with Iran was "over".

Three US soldiers died after Iranian missile strikes on a base in Jordan on 17 July and another in Iraq during a controlled detonation of an Iranian drone.

Since mid-July, the US had attacked Iranian military infrastructure, met with Iranian forces firing on American bases in neighbouring countries, for 13 consecutive nights.

Then starting on Friday there has been a pause, with Sunday the third night of no attacks from both sides.

Ukraine's Drone Campaign Against The 'Russian Amazon' Is Driven By Political Motives

Ukraine's Drone Campaign Against The 'Russian Amazon' Is Driven By Political Motives

by Tyler Durden
Saturday, Jul 25, 2026 - 11:20 PM


Authored by Andrew Korybko,


The goal is to create a growing class of malcontents by inflicting major harm to small business owners who might then shift the electoral odds against the ruling party ahead of September’s next elections and later possibly form the core of a future protest movement that could be exploited from abroad.



Ukraine’s US-assisted long-range drone campaign against Russia has recently begun targeting the country’s online retailer Wildberries, which is essentially the “Russian Amazon”, with recent strikes either totally destroying or greatly damaging several of its logistics centers. The Financial Times cited Russia’s edition of Forbes to report that these attacks might have already destroyed 150-275 billion rubles’ worth of inventory thus far, equivalent to around $2-3.5 billion, or more than Wildberries’ net profit last year.

They also importantly cited Alexander Kolyandr, a director at Eurasia Group, who told them that “The loss of the goods will put thousands of traders out of business, resulting in unpaid taxes, defaulted loans and the like.” Therein lies the political motive behind Ukraine’s drone campaign against the “Russian Amazon”. Zelensky announced a 40-day influence operation against Russia late last month with the objective of coercing it into a ceasefire without any concessions from Ukraine or its Western patrons.

It’ll formally end in early August, so nearly six weeks before the next Duma elections in late September, the first since the special operation began as the last ones were in 2021. His influence operation will likely be extended, however, even if only informally. With this political context in mind as well as the explicitly stated goal that he aims to achieve, it’s clear that Zelensky authorized his forces to do whatever they can to maximally inconvenience average Russians for the purpose of turning them against Putin.

This explains the prior spree of strikes against Russian energy infrastructure, which led to a spike in fuel costs that Ukraine expected would raise prices across the board due to higher transport costs for slashing average Russians’ disposable income, and the Wildberries campaign is the next phase. Harming small businesses more directly affects average Russians, both buyers and of course sellers, and the particular intent appears to be to create a new and growing class of malcontents within the country.

If taken to its extreme, and it’s possible that more logistics centers will be targeted and at least damaged since 18 of the 20 largest in Russia are reportedly within range of Ukrainian drones, this could have long-term socio-political and economic consequences for Russia. The state, which is already under financial strain due to the combination of sanctions, attacks against its energy infrastructure, and the recent large-scale destruction of small business’ taxable inventory, might thus be pressured to bail them out.

Inadequate support for struggling small business owners could shift the electoral odds against the ruling party in what would then be spun as a symbolic setback to Putin, create the earlier mentioned class of malcontents, and thus possibly rekindle long-dormant protest potential that could be exploited from abroad. The consequences could therefore cascade in the worst-case, which admittedly isn’t likely since the state still has time to avert it, so it’s premature to expect this yet it also shouldn’t be ruled out either.

The larger trend is that Ukraine’s spree of strikes against Russia is gradually evolving from showmanship into strategy, assisted as it’s been by the US, which provides targeting intelligence and overall guidance to its proxy. “Trump 2.0’s Escalation Strategy Against Russia Is Starting To Take Shape”, and it’s centered on a “war of attrition” that’s now setting its sights on largely civilian targets like Wildberries, the aim of which is to advance political goals that are in any case unlikely to get Putin to declare a ceasefire.

Iran Blasts "Freeloader" Zelensky For Ordering Deadly Attack On Caspian Vessel "At Israel's Behest"

Iran Blasts "Freeloader" Zelensky For Ordering Deadly Attack On Caspian Vessel "At Israel's Behest"

by Tyler Durden
Monday, Jul 27, 2026 - 04:30 AM

Summary:

• Iran Accuses Zelensky of Ordering Deadly Caspian Vessel Attack
• Weekend US Crude via IG Markets Down 5%
• Iran Will Halt Tit-For-Tat Strikes If US Maintains Pause
• Iran, Oman Hold Hormuz Talks As US Pauses Airstrikes For Second Day

* * *

Iran Lashes Out at "Freeloader" Zelensky for Caspian Sea Attack

Iran has accused Ukraine of attacking an Iranian commercial vessel in the Caspian Sea, which it says resulted in an explosion that killed one sailor and injured another.

As we previously reported of the Saturday maritime incident, Ukraine seems to be openly boasting of this escalation. President Zelensky himself announced soon after on X, "We also have very good results from long-range strikes in the waters of the Caspian Sea. In particular, these are vessels that were involved in transporting military cargo from Iran, and a warship."

Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs summoned Ukraine’s chargé d’affaires in Tehran to severely protest the "hostile and criminal" attack on Saturday, IRNA reported. Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has further warned that the "blatant UN Charter violation" which was "done at Israel's behest" could serve to "drag Europe into its war." Araghchi also denounced and attacked Zelensky personally, calling him the "freeloader in Kyiv"...

Seyed Abbas Araghchi

@araghchi

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Zelenskyy has attacked an Iranian commercial vessel, killing a sailor. A blatant UN Charter violation done at Israel's behest to drag Europe into its war. In calls with EU High Rep Kallas and FM Lavrov, made clear that what the freeloader in Kyiv did CANNOT GO UNANSWERED.

1:48 AM · Jul 27, 2026

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The risk of the Russia-Ukraine conflict merging with the US-Iran conflict seems plausible, but still remains low, and yet the Caspian Sea situation shows that it is actually possible. The Iranians have sought alternative trade and shipping routes via the Caspian, and early in Operation Epic Fury Israeli warplanes reportedly targeted and took out Iranian naval vessels there.

This isn't the first time that FM Araghchi has called out Zelensky. Back in January of this year, for example, he called Zelensky a "confused clown", and said that the Ukrainian leader had been "rinsing American and European taxpayers to fill the pockets of his corrupt generals." The two countries have previously clashed over Iran supplying Russia with Shahed suicide drones.
Iran Will Halt Tit-For-Tat Strikes If US Maintains Pause

The diplomatic track appears to have opened with the Trump administration's move to pause strikes as a goodwill gesture ahead of the weekend - now in its second day. That created space for Omani officials to meet their Iranian counterparts over the weekend, with Tehran reporting "some progress." The talks have now produced a reciprocal stand-down, under which Iran would halt retaliatory strikes on US bases as long as the US maintains its pause in airstrikes.

Reuters reports:

Iran will halt its own attacks as long as the United States maintains its latest pause on air strikes, a senior Iranian official told Reuters on Sunday, after President Donald Trump abruptly called off ‌his two-week-old bombing campaign.

After 13 nights of intensifying U.S. air strikes on Iran, the Pentagon abruptly suspended the campaign late on Friday, with no U.S. attacks reported on either Saturday or Sunday.

Iran, which had been following each night of U.S. attacks with its own strikes on neighboring countries that host U.S. bases, has also so far held fire for two days.

The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Mike Waltz, told Fox News on Sunday that Trump had decided to pause U.S. attacks to allow more time for diplomacy.

"He's giving talks some space, he's giving it a little bit of room," Waltz said, without providing further details.

The senior Iranian source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters: "Iran's position remains 'attack for attack': if the attacks stop, Iran will also halt its operations. That message has already been conveyed to the United States."

The source added: "However, Iran is prepared to mount a broad response should the U.S. launch another attack."

Asked about the pause, a senior official in Trump's administration said on Saturday that the president "has always been clear that his preference is diplomacy, but he has shown Iran what will happen if they fail to come to the table in a serious way."

The senior Iranian source said Tehran did not hold much hope that Trump's decision to pause strikes represented a major shift in the U.S. negotiating position.

"There is more skepticism than optimism about the halt in attacks. The prevailing view is that the pause is tactical rather than genuine. Iran has accumulated enough bitter experience with what it sees as U.S. deception," the source said.

As a result of both sides trying to find a diplomatic route to ending the intensifying tit-for-tat strikes that sent Brent crude futures north of $100 a barrel last week, Weekend US Crude via IG Markets is down about 5% as of late morning New York time.