Being hypocrites

Being hypocrites, today post is to look at the hypocrites who runs organisations and ministries that drafts policies.

Being an undergraduate studying now, you are fired up and all ready to work and "change" the world.
I've big dreams that I'll be able to earn a decent income, and work my way up
the heirachy. But nothing goes just the way you want it. Because you want it,it does not means it should be given to you.
And that is the exact "BAM" that I've got, a brick wall.

So why hypocrites? We have always been told, we need to recruit more and retain in local nurses. We were also told that we should not always depends on foreigners to fill up vacant positions that the locals does not want to fill up. They [put in those hospitals and only health ministry name in here] blame the locals for being demanding, they blame the locals for being greedy, citing that the local are always running overseas just for monetary benefits offered by another country, but the question here is, Why are the locals doing that ?

There have never been any shortage of nurses. I would boldly claimed that it is in fact a facade and propaganda by those who draft policies and determine your salary. Let us look at some ROUGH and I insists on ROUGH Statistics. NYP has graduating students on average 700 from Diploma (3 year) and Acclerated Diploma(2 years), NP has graduating students on average 400 from Diploma (3 years) and NUS has graduating students on average 100 from Bsc and Bsc Hons. (3-4 years). These 1200 graduants and graduates a year are all qualified people to be registered in Singapore Nursing Board as Registered Nurses, and for the last 3-4 years, assuming that these statistics does not changed, we would have 3600 - 4800 registered Nurses within the last few years.

Does these numbers shows that we lack nurses ? We never lack nurses if we are producing thousands a year. and IF ALL entered the work force. But why are there shortage of nurses? Because not all had entered the workforce.

I do agree to a certain extend that some of these graduants or graduates are just interested in getting a diploma or degree just to hitch on to another programme or qualification, but there are not alot of them that exists. The real reason for alot of nurses not willing to enter the workforce as nurses or left the nursing scence all on the whole after just a short period of working which can last from 6mths to 1 year of working, is that the remuneration are not attractive enough.Especially for the amount of work load that is involved.

I remembered that I graduated with a Diploma in Nursing from NYP in the Year 2010, and proceed on to apply for a job as a RN in a local tetiary hospital in Singapore, Frankly speaking, totally Dissapointing. I've been offered a basic salary if $1650, which in actual fact if broken down, is $1500 is the raw salary, and MVC of $150. The trick here is MVC. MVC (Multiple Variable Condtions) is a total well thought and planned scamming scheme. In short, in time of economic down turn, or the hospital is losing money, the MVC can be removed from your salary. that essentially means you are infact working on a pay roll of $1500. Yes yes, I can already hear all those higher up screaming like a small kid defending themselves like how a small kid denied stealing the sweets.

Yes, we have shift allowances, meal allowances, that adds on to probably another $100 more or $150, which make my income to be $1800. Sounds like it is on par with other diploma graduants from other courses. Here is the trick, if you're not on an afternoon or night shift, you are not entitled to meal allowances. If you're not on night and afternoon shift often, you are also cutting down on shift allowances, and if they decides to take away the MVC which they can for whatever "justified" reason they come up with, do your own mathematics, do I have to elaborate further?

My friend who gradauted with some computer programming engineering, earns a raw pay of $1800 too, but he works 8-5.30 daily, no hassle of trying to shift sleeping hours forward and backwards becasue of shift work. He has the weekends off to do whatever he wants, while we have day offs that falls on weekdays, that makes you wanting to meet up for a drink or meal with your friends fairly difficult.

My friend sits in an office just facing the computer doing his work, oh yes, he has his stress and fair share of work, but you can never deny one thing, nurses worked much harder and paid much lesser. We take 6 -9 cases on average in a local nursing scene in a general ward setting in local restructured hospital. Do the computer programmer worked on all 9 computers throughout the day? Do we sit down on our comfortable butts and bed bathe our patients or do we stand all the way up with our legs through the shift ?

Nurses are always getting screamed at by patients, relatives, even doctors gives them the treatment if the doctor( I WOULD PREFER NOT TO CALL Doctor, Dr. is solely and strictly for PhD holders only.)doesn't sees fit or eye to eye. The worse part of all, NURSES ARE BULLYING NURSES. Senior staff nurses bullying new staff nurses giving them difficult cases and scolding them if they can't handle, staff nurses bullying junior nurses and student nurses, Nurse managers pushing their own staff to the chopping board when things happen, Directors of Nursing should be slap. They are our voice to this huge injustice treatment, yet because these organisations bribed them with high salary, they join the rank. Oh my God (if there is one), what is happening here ?

Who allows all these organisation or ministries to determine the fate of Nurses ? If the physician(Doctor as most layman wld call) has their own SMC to manage them , why is that your SNB is not doing anything? Worse off, our Singapore Nursing association is utterly useless and powerless. When things about nursing is brought up, SNA is never looked upon for consultation, opinions of nurses are not needed, THERE IS A SILENCING EFFECT IN NURSING ?

Why should we continue to stay silent ? Who understand the patient's condition better ? I won't deny that physicians understand their biological and medical conditions, but they do not know the contributing factors, the social, environmental and pyschological determinants, we nurses who spend all our time with patients knows it best.

Here is one classic example I got from my ex colleague. Patient came into his unit, and was presented with sky rocketting HBA1C results. Patient had been on mixtard dosage unchanged for the last 12 years. The Consultant comfortably walked in and scolded the patient for not taking his insulin. The consultant ASSUME (it is known to be made an ASS out of U and ME. that patient did not follow the reigme, my ex colleague who was chatting with the patient finding more history from the patient lashes it out at the Consultant. My ex colleauge lashes at the consultant that the patient was compliant to his regime, but because of the change in his work, which affected the working hours, resulting him unable to take his normal dose and timing of insulin, as his eating time has changed, and he worries he may end up hypoglycemic. See what I mean ? It is all because of the BIO MEDICAL MODEL, CARTISAN DUALISM. These retards simply doesn't know a thing.

Lets look back at Remuneration for nurses, that makes me simply pissed till my balls drop. I've witness my army mate, who called my ex hospital asking for salary range upon his graduation from NUS. It sounded great, and I thought (I THOUGHT)having a degree makes a big difference. So the following are the possible income range he may have.

NUS BSC
$2600 upon graduation (inclusive of the scamming MVC)
$200 extra for Male nurse who completed NS
Average of $150-200 for shift and meal allowances.
Monthly expected income before cpf = $3000 plus minus.

NUS BSC Hons
$2800 upon graduation(inclusive of the scamming MVC)
$200 extra for Male nurse who completed NS
Average of $150-200 for shift and meal allowances.
Monthly expected income before cpf = $3200 plus minus.


All these sounded great, and so I CALLED THE SAME HOSPITAL AND TALKED TO THE SAME person. I told her I am a university of sydney student doing locally, and will be graduating with a full University of Sydney Bachelors. This is what I'm qouted.

University of Sydney Bac. In nursing
$2150 upon graduation
$200 extra for Male nurse who completed NS
Average of $150-200 for shift and meal allowances.
Monthly expected income before cpf = $2550 plus minus.

University of Sydney Bac. In nursing Hons
$2250 upon graduation
$200 extra for Male nurse who completed NS
Average of $150-200 for shift and meal allowances.
Monthly expected income before cpf = $2650 plus minus.

Look at the $500-$600 a month difference. WHY SUCH A BIG DISPARITY?
I questioned the person over the phone, the person said because the NUS did it locally, I said, OH YES, I DID MINES LOCALLY too. She said, it is an overseas university. Let me enlighten you readers, in case you thing my university is some cheap rubbish university.

http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/2010

University of Manchester 30 in rank
NUS 31
University of sydney 37.

MY UNIVERSITY IS IN THE TOP 40 RANGE ZONE ! ALL IN THE THIRTIES RANGE !
Why am I being ostracised ? MY professor insists that our Degree is a full wholesome degree conffered by the Uni. Because Whatever we do locally, is the same as the australia main campus, my professors all fly into singapore to teach, we do not hire local cheapo tutors to teach their australian syllabus, they demand the same standards from us locally as in australia, why ?

I do understand the point of supporting local universities etc etc. But NUS only takes in 100 a year. Of which I presume 70 places goes to diploma students. What is happening to the rest of 1030 diploma students ? They've got no choice but to study these overseas university. Not to say the rest of the 1030 students are having rubbish results, some of them met the requirement of 3.5 /4.0 GPA to study, but because of places constraint, those who are scoring 3.7 to 4.0 are all getting in, the rest are not necessary lousy. AND RESULTS DOES NOT DETERMINED THAT YOU ARE A GOOD NURSE. YOU CAN HAVE A GPA OF 5.0 IN uni, in the end you're just another BOOKWORM who doesn't bother about patients.

NUS Nursing cites places limitation to quality control ,well done! That is the exact reason why all of us are flocking to overseas universities. AND if the local university is that great as you claimed, WHY SEND THE SCHOLARS overseas to study ? Just get their butts glued here and study in NUS, since it is so good, you can save that money to send them overseas and give it to the poor nurses.

So SNB accredited so many universities in hope that Nurses can get their degrees as they wished and hopes to retain them, yet not giving them the salary they deserves. THEN WHY BOTHER ACCREDITING in the first place. IS THAT NOT HYPOCRISY AT IT'S BEST AND MAX?

Nurses runs overseas because they get paid better over there, we've got families here too, It pains us alot to make that decision to go over to another forgein land and work. But because of Livelyhood, We've got no choice.

Now a comfortable 5 room HDB is around $400k++ raw. Thanks to some stupid horse. Raising a kid is not cheap in singapore, neither is healthcare. Yes government helps etc etc, but things are just going to get more expensive and our pay are just staying stagnant.

I've just been back from bukit timah hill climbing in the morning, and after decending, I went to have breakfast with my Mum, aunt, uncle and cousin, guess what. 1 bowl of BAR CHOR MEE with kopi is $5.00. Tell me, how to survive ? Alot of us are facing this problems, not only nurses alone.

So in short, Nurses, forget about the fact that the Local Nursing Scene will change. The roots are rotten beyong cure, no amount of antibiotics are going to work, we are just going to be silenced one by one. If you have to leave to get a better life, Do not hesistate. BECAUSE They Don't Really Care About Us. (Michale Jackson)

I dreamed a dream in time gone by
When hope was high and life worth living [I thought so too]
I dreamed that love would never die
I dreamed that God would be forgiving

Then I was young and unafraid [Yes I am, so I'm posting now.]
And dreams were made and used and wasted [My dreams all gone, probably the rest too]
There was no ransom to be paid [What can we do ?]
No song unsung, no wine untasted

But the tigers come at night [Put the organisation and ministries here]
With their voices soft as thunder [ Yeah totally]
As they turn your hope apart [ Thy shredded it.]
As they turn your dreams to shame [ I am totally ashamed.]

And still I dream he?d come to me [I dreamed all of the dreams will come]
That we would live the years together
But there are dreams that cannot be [But simply not to be]
And there are storms we cannot weather [We cannot overcome the hypocrites]

I had a dream my life would be [I totally have]
So different from the hell I?m living [ Yes it was Hell.]
So different now from what it seemed [Difference ?]
Now life has killed the dream I dreamed [They hypocrites killed my dream]


I've said my piece. I won't be getting a satisfied answers. My friends. Lets leave. why should we bother heeding the call to stay at their convenience, when they are not doing anything. We are professionals of our kind. Let us just leave and let the whole system collapse. I really want to see the whole system collapse and they will realise that without us local nurses, They cannot survive, because foreign nurses will not continue to let you scam them over for eternity.