Medical Treatment in Africa

After reading about a terrible mix-up of operations in the nation of Tanzania, it revived my memory when I was sick while I was in Khartoum, Sudan.

The mix-up incident in Tanzania was met with tragic. A patient (Emmanuel Mgaya) who has tumour in his head was operated on his knee. While the other guy (Emmanuel Didas) who was supposed to be operated on his knee, was given a operation on his head.

Mgaya died from late operation on his head.
Didas is now partially paralysed due to the unwanted operation on his head.
Reason: Both patients in the same hospital have the same first name.

So simple to wash their hands clean. When I had diarrhoea in Sudan the last round (a Saturday night), I had to buy medicine from a pharmacy as there are no clinics in Sudan. Even after being discharged from a hospital, you would have to buy medicine from a pharmacy instead. When you are really sick, you either admit yourself into a small or big hospital.

My diarrhoea continued on the whole Sunday. On Monday morning, my company's medical arrangement with a hospital, Fedail Hospital, arranged for a hospital medical officer to bring me to their hospital.

When it was my turn to see the doctor she enquired what happened to me.
Me: I had diarrhoea since late yesterday night but having stomach muscle cramp now.
Lady Doctor: Do you know what caused it?
Me: No idea as I ate the same food with my colleagues.
Lady Doctor: Did you take any medicine since yesterday night?
Me: Yes I did. I bought an anti-diarrhoea medicine from the pharmacy to stop the purging.
Lady Doctor: Was it effective?
Me: Yes but it seems that it had stopped all purging too effectively until I can't let go now and it's causing that pain in my stomach.
Lady Doctor: I will give you another medicine which will relieve your muscle cramp. Since you don't know what caused your diarrhoea, I need you to provide sample for me so that we could examine the cause of it.
Me: What do you mean? What sample? (I was really that naive)
Lady Doctor: Whatever you purge out later on, please get some sample of those stuff. I will provide a bottle for you.

Did I follow the doctor's instruction? Of course not. It was not the first time I had diarrhoea and where did that doctor graduate from. First time hearing that I was required to obtain my pooh so that a medical test could be conducted to determine what caused my diarrhoea. Goodness me! As if it was life threatening or an epidemic that has struck Sudan.

After taking the new medicine provided by this doctor, it did help my stomach to relieve what has been stopped by the medicine provided by the pharmacist. I rested well on Monday and went back to work on Tuesday.
Tags: Medical Treatment, Diarrhoea, Tanzania, Khartoum, Sudan, Lady Doctor

Christmas Drama Trailer

Yeahhhhhhh....... we have our own trailer as well for our upcoming Christmas Dramas. When you go for a movie, you will normally get to watch a trailer of an upcoming movie. The movie trailer tends to capture your attention and gives you a glimpse of what to expect.

Well, we are not that far behind (behind in terms of money of course). Nevertheless, our multimedia guy produced this excellent piece as our movie trailer. Enjoy the trailer!

Praise City Church is presenting to you their Special Christmas Presentation - "The Bridge"



Tags: Christmas Drama, Christmas, Church Drama, Church, Movie Trailer, Multimedia, The Bridge, Praise City Church

Bad China Food in Malaysia

If you do like to eat food, please be wary of the following food products from China:-
1) honey (reason: drug residue) - more of this will make my muscles grow? enough time to build up for Beijing Olympics?
2) oyster sauce (reason: cancer-causing agent 3-MCPD); and
3) dried mushrooms (reason: pesticide residue)

The list doesn't stop there for China which has included frozen eel, seaweed, frozen royal red prawns, shitake mushrooms and salted turnip too.

Others as highlighted in the newspapers are as follows:-
* groundnut kernels from India (reason: cancer-causing agent aflatoxin)
* natural honey, kicap manis, prawn crackers and chilli sauce from Indonesia (on Ministry of Health's watch list)
* roasted seaweed from Singapore (reason: contain metal contaminants)

Just when you thought you were safe from China products as highlighted here and here, it has came upon the Malaysian shore. What went wrong with their quality control over there?

Good thing our Malaysian Health Ministry's Food Quality and Safety Division was on full alert and able to detect such anomalies and all the above stated China food would be cautiously tested before being given a clean bill.

But some of those tainted food products did make it past the Health Ministry's testing and are found in various supermarkets/convenience stores around Malaysia. Was our Health Ministry negligent in their work? They had even confirmed earlier that China food products were clean.
Tags: Malaysian Health Ministry, Food Quality and Safety Division, Drug Residue, Pesticide Residue, Cancer-Causing Agent, 3-MCPD, Aflatoxin, Metal Contaminants, China Food, Food

Ant Power

Once upon a time, there came along a company named Yilishen (蟻力神) in China. The company sells health and food products that derived from ants.

But how does the company ensure that it gets an adequate supply of ants from which to extract the ingredients required for their products?

Yilishen actually used the well-known behavior of ants by recruiting massive numbers of ant farmers. Each ant farmer signs up with the company with an initial fee of 10,000 yuan, and then he gets supplied with the company ant-breeding equipment. The ant farmer gets paid for the number of ants produced at a price that ensures him a good profit if he meets the quota. Hundreds of thousands of people sign up.

The ability of the company to pay the ant farmers requires that enough of the ant-based products are being sold. If the sales exceeds the supply, all is well. If the sales is lower than the supply, it is hell to pay.

Recently, Yilishen suddenly discontinued buying from the the ant farmers as well as the payments. The rumor was that the company was bankrupt and the senior company officials have esconded. Several tens of thousands ant farmers converged to the company headquarters in Shenyang to protest without effect.

So last night, the protestors switched their target and surrounded the Liaoning provincial party committee 's office and broke through the police cordon to wave banners and chant slogan. The police are on full alert. Meanwhile, all discussions about Yilishen and the demonstrations have been disappeared from the mainland Chinese Internet. (Extracted from ESWN website)
Tags: Ant, Ant Power, Ant Farmer, Yilishen, Shenyang, Liaoning, Liaoning Provincial Party Committee, China

Outer Space Eyeview

A friend's friend's granddaughter who works for NASA sent these pictures that were from past missions. The last picture was taken during Hurricane Dean.

Tags: NASA, Space, Hurricane Dean

Things To Do When Free

Do you know when I saw this picture, it gave me a wild imagination for my drama as well ...... hehehe

Oh well, as for this picture ...... it's just marvellous how poor people can fully maximise their talent even without the basic writing instruments. It won't stop them from sharing their knowledge with others.

How thoughtful of this 3 guys!
Tags: Unique, Drama, Writing Instrument, Funny, Humour

Beyond Control

This drama depicts a man who thought he knew everything and that people has to rely on him for his intelligence and wide knowledge.

In office, he will not tolerate imperfection.

At home, he can't understand family members' weaknesses.

What will make him realise that his actions were tooooooooo much?

Read this para:
A friend of mine who is a jet pilot once told me that whenever a jet goes out of control and begins to spin, the only thing to do is totally take your hands off the controls and the plane will right itself. This goes against our natural inclination to control and manipulate in order to bring things back under control. It is scary to be out of control. Or is it?
(The Dangers of Overcontrol by Os Hillman)


We were trying to finish the video shooting for this drama at a friend's home.
Just when we wanted to finish fast, the battery's life ended even faster. Good thing Kerk brought along his spare battery.
Tags: Christmas Drama, Christmas, Beyond Control