DO NOT PRICE MEDICAL RESPONSIBILITY

27 August 1997

The Forum Editor
The Straits Times
390 Kim Seng Road
Singapore 239495

Dear Editor

DO NOT PRICE MEDICAL RESPONSIBILITY

	Reasoning that "doctors should be responsible people", the Health Minister
argued that doctors who break their five-year government bond should be
subject to de-registration (Straits Times, 26 Aug 97).
	Confusingly, the Health Ministry now says that only doctors who break
their bond without paying damages of $350,000 to $400,000 would be
de-registered (Straits Times, 27 Aug 97).
	If irresponsibility, i.e., breaking the bond, is the basis for
de-registration, then all bond-breakers should be de-registered, regardless
of whether they are able to pay damages. Otherwise, the public must draw
the ridiculous conclusions that medical responsibility has a price and rich
doctors are mysteriously more responsible than poor doctors.
	I find more rational the argument of the various Members of Parliament
that de-registration should be reserved as punishment for medical
incompetence or malpractice. The Health Ministry pleads that the
de-registration clause is not new. Singaporeans have recently been exhorted
to abandon old mindsets. Should not the Health Ministry do so too?

Yours sincerely

_____________________
Chong Fu Shin Francis