Penang wants Health Ministry to investigate racist doctor claims
(The Malay Mail) – The Bagan MP said the state had received complaints from doctors and also patients on the “racial game” being played using the doctors.
Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng wants the Health Ministry to launch an investigation into the racist doctor allegations that surfaced during the recent sitting of the Penang state assembly.
Lim (picture) wants the ministry to get to the bottom of the allegations and if there is any truth to it, to fire the three ethnic Chinese doctors who allegedly turned away Malay patients and also take away their medical licence for going against the Hippocrates Oath.
“If those allegations are not true, I feel that it is only fair that Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr S. Subramaniam steps forward to clear the names of those doctors, not only the ethnic Chinese doctors, but all doctors,” he said in an official letter to the minister dated today.
Lim also wants an early response from the ministry on this issue as it has caused much concern among doctors that they are being dragged into such dangerous racial “games”.
On July 3, opposition (Barisan Nasional) state assemblyman Datuk Roslan Saidin had accused three ethnic Chinese doctors at two government hospitals of refusing to treat Malay patients following the “Chinese tsunami” of Chinese voters turning against BN in the May 5 polls.
The state government had demanded that Roslan furnish proof of his accusations but he has so far failed to show any proof despite claiming that he had concrete proof of those doctors turning away Malay patients.
Lim maintained that the state government, the government hospitals in Penang and the Penang Health Department have not received any official complaint regarding Roslan’s allegations.
“Since such complaints could be forwarded direct to Putrajaya, we wish to get confirmation from the ministry on whether it had received such complaints,” Lim said.
The Bagan MP said the state had received complaints from doctors and also patients on the “racial game” being played using the doctors.
“Even Malay patients are disappointed that racial sentiments are being raised when they believe that they had received medical treatments that had saved their lives by ethnic Chinese doctors at government hospitals and also at private hospitals,” he said.
He said even Malay doctors are unhappy with this baseless allegations as they believe they too could be accused of the same wild allegations.
“It is the ministry’s moral and professional ethics to clear the doctors’ image in this issue if there is no truth to the accusations,” he said.
