National Service call to parents
By Prof. Dr Mohamad Tajuddin Mohamad Rasdi
May 13, 2008
I have been calling for a public inquiry on all the National Service deaths since six letters ago. Yet nothing has come out from our unconcerned Lee Lam Thye or Abdul Hadi Awang Kechil, the director-general of National Service, Ministry of Defence.
The parents of the newest deaths have decided to sue for negligence and I fully support them. I have always suspected that the camps have played a major role in the deaths by not alerting parents, not using proper procedure and simply not caring two cents what happens to our children.
Take the two cases quoted by The Star (May 11) by the parents. John Ooi wrote that his son was urinating blood and was kept in the camp in Bintulu for several days before being sent to hospital. When the condition showed no changes, John said he faxed a letter to Dato’ Hadi to ask permission to take his son to a KL specialist. He said that his letter was never replied.
Another parent wrote that his child was kept in the Semanggul camp for many days with severe diarrhoea and vomiting whilst the parents were never told of the condition. These two cases support my argument that the NS people do not have the expertise to take care of our children. We parents must demand two important things from the NS while waiting for a complete revamp of the programme.
The first thing is that all the trainees must be allowed handphone access at ALL times. This is to facilitate their calling parents when they are sick or bullied, or molested or bitten by snakes. Parents should also make a habit of calling them at least once in two days. Yes, we all ‘manjakan anak’. In the context of more than 20 deaths, I think we as parents are more than justified in NOT trusting the NS people at all.
The second thing we must demand is that any and all cases of sickness MUST be referred immediately to a nearby clinic in town with a certified doctor. I no longer trust Dato’ Hadi’s Medical Unit with his so-called Medical Assistants. No go, Dato’. Your setup is a total screw-up! You should pray that we parents don’t prosecute you and your staff along with that Lee Lam Thye for causing the deaths of all the children.
If these two conditions are not met, I do not foresee anything but absolute danger for our children in this murderous programme. After this, we must call for a complete stop to all NS programmes. We must call for a public inquiry into all the deaths and prosecute all the officials involved. Then we must sit down together to debate what programme, if need be at all, is most suitable for our ‘manja’ children.
If ever Dato Seri Anwar Ibrahim comes to power, the first thing I will personally ask him is to stop this murderous programme! If not, then, moving to another country is my next option next year.
Prof Tajuddin earlier voiced his reservations about NS in these letters to Malaysiakini:
NS deaths: Are you parents dead too? (Link: www.malaysiakini.com/letters/82601)
NS deaths: don’t push blame to parents (Link: www.malaysiakini.com/letters/82174)
Don’t trust NS camp people (Link: www.malaysiakini.com/letters/81755)
To get the ball rolling on the National Service pressure group, the Prof has volunteered RM2,000 for printing posters and underwriting other campaign expenditure. – Helen Ang
To participate in further discussions, please send an e-mail for your inclusion in the group under the subject header ‘No more Non-Sense’ to thepeoplesparliament@gmail.com.