BureaucraZZY!

The Star, August 4, 2005

Frustrated! That is how Datuk Nazir Ariff is feeling after a series of red tape hampered his effort to provide sleeping quarters for poor outstation folk visiting their sick relatives at the Penang Hospital.

For two frustrating years the businessman has been working hard to get the free hostel project off the ground. It took him a year to persuade the hospital authorities to allocate a small plot of land for him to build the hostel to house these poor visitors. But bureaucracy kept getting in the way. Nazir did not give up and managed to convince the authorities to allow him to renovate an abandoned derelict dental hostel located within the compound. But now that the building is ready, he has been informed that the hostel could only be used when its status had been converted from a dental hostel into a visitors hall.

Nazir said two years ago his mother was warded and he visited her every night. That was when he saw visitors sleeping along corridors and mothers breastfeeding their babies under the stairwell. “It was sad to see old folk sleeping curled up like a foetus along the cold corridors. “Women with children were staying under the stairwell and using sarong to keep out the cold at night,” he said. These poor visitors, some of whom come from east coast states, “camp” at the hospital as they cannot afford to stay at hotels.

Nazir, who is president of the Penang Council of Datuks, passed the hat around the members and collected the money needed. “The double-storey dental hostel, was restored and renovated at RM150,000. It has 44 beds and 10 bathrooms. “We had planned to invite the Yang di-Pertua Negri to open the hostel,” he added. It is learnt that the state Health Department had directed the hospital to put the opening ceremony on hold as it wanted the hospital to submit an application to have the building’s status converted. A Health Ministry spokesman said there were procedures to be followed. “We want Penang Hospital to write to us as to how they were going to manage the visitors hall, who would bear the cost of running it and other details,” the spokesman said.

OH, EFFICIENCY; OH, EFFECTIVENESS; OH MY GOD!!!!

This is what the public can do for the poor!

This is what the bureaucrazy can do to slow down the process.

Oh, Pak Lah ...are you for the people, or are we having some deficiency syndrome!

Cekap, Bersih, dan Amanah!

Cermelang, gemilang, dan Terbilang!

Kita kena bilang lah!

Work with me, NOT work for me!

Cakap siok siok!