When it comes to making changes, there are protests. It’s funny that sometimes the protest comes from a single person (who never had the chance to make his wife pregnant, never had the chance to raise a Down syndrome child, never had the chance to care for a patient with a life-threatening infected miscarriage). The decision-making is more emotional than rational.
Date June 27, 2007
Today is a midweek Wednesday. I woke up not knowing what time it was, but I rolled around for a long time until the alarm clock went off. It was 7:15 AM by the time I left my accommodation. The traffic was quite busy. Today, I worked in the clinic both in the morning and afternoon. There weren’t many patients. In the morning, we opened 4 rooms (following yesterday’s meeting), and we were able to finish the clinic by 11:30 AM. Teacher Han was pleased.
At noon, I stopped by the library to borrow some books to read. Today, I borrowed a book on urodynamics. The exciting thing today was that I had the chance to look around and found that the KKH library is like a museum in itself, as it displays old stories since the hospital was founded over a hundred years ago. I learned that KKH stands for Kandang Kerbau. Here’s the origin of the name.
I learned that in the past, the area where the hospital is located, which is in the Little India district, was popular among Indians who traveled here for livestock farming. There was a small river flowing through, making it a very good location. This area had many cattle pens. Kandang means pen or enclosure, and Kerbau means buffalo (read it carefully, it’s pronounced “karabao” in Malay). Therefore, KKH means Buffalo Pen Hospital.
What impressed me greatly here is that they have preserved and displayed many tools and equipment, such as old childbirth teaching dolls that look quite scary, various delivery tools, vacuum extractors, and abortion tools.
The hospital initially started as a venereal disease hospital but later became a maternity care hospital. It was named KK Maternity Hospital before becoming KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital as it is today. It was once recorded by the Guinness Book of World Records as the largest maternity and children’s hospital in the world in 1966 and 1976.
Besides being a maternity and children’s hospital, they have been providing abortion services since ancient times. I saw various abortion tools used from the early stages up to just before birth, which we call fetal destruction procedures. It may sound terrifying to many, but don’t forget that in the past, when medicine was not advanced, they couldn’t perform cesarean sections, or if they did, the mother would surely die. So, in cases where the fetus had problems or couldn’t be delivered vaginally, or the uterus would rupture, they had to terminate the fetus before extracting it. Imagine how scary and pitiful it was. I got goosebumps looking at the tools, comparing them to today when care is much better than before. Cesarean sections can be done easily, and even abortions can be performed safely from early pregnancy up to the second trimester.
At KKH, abortion services are very common. Every day, about 10 curettage procedures are performed in the operating room, and an unknown number in the minor surgery room (I once secretly counted, and there were about 15-20 cases). This is despite the government wanting more children, but they are looking further ahead, wanting quality children. If they are born without anyone to care for them or are not well cared for, it would be bad. So, they allow abortions.
Another thing is that their women won’t have to resort to unsafe abortions and risk infections like in our country. Patients receive care from doctors and nurses just like other patients. The doctors performing abortions get paid, whether they are consultants, medical officers (MO), or registrars, and the money circulates within the hospital system. It seems that everyone accepts it as normal. As I said, they care more about preventing infection-related complications from abortions than anything else.
In developed countries, they prioritize the basic needs and safety of their citizens above all else (not just regarding abortion). Even though they have people of various races and religions living together, there are no problems.
When compared to our country, just the issue of abortion laws has been debated for over 20 years. To amend or not to amend? When it comes to making changes, there are protests. It’s funny that sometimes the protest comes from a single person (who never had the chance to make his wife pregnant, never had the chance to raise a Down syndrome child, never had the chance to care for a patient with a life-threatening infected miscarriage). The decision-making is more emotional than rational. Politicians are more concerned about their own votes than the needs or safety of the people. That’s why our country is the way it is.
Today, I got back to my accommodation early because I was able to clear the patients quickly in the afternoon. I want to write about my plan to open a lower body repair clinic at PSU, but that will have to wait for another time.
Source: https://www.gotoknow.org/posts/106840 by Assoc. Prof. Dr. Thanapan Chubun