Misdiagnosis

It is often reported that many healthy individuals are treated for serious and fife threatening diseases such as AIDS, TB or Cancer due to faulty diagnosis based on single pathological result or oversensitive medial diagnostic tools. Unfortunately for the patients, most of the time poor patients without financial support/medical insurance, the treatment starts, without confirmatory tests. Patients are made to undergo surgery where surgery is not really indicated.
One of the recent instances reported is a lady misdiagnosed for HIV and received treatment for almost 9 years before discovering she never actually had the virus that causes AIDS. In court, Jury awarded her US$2.5 million in damages. Similarly, non-carcinogenic growths are treated for cancer, some of the lung conditions are treated for tuberculosis, etc. The patients are made to live with the stigma for years, sometimes away from their family members.

Who is responsible for such incidents? Major responsibility lies with the medical doctor who decides on the line of treatment. He may be careless in suggesting the treatment without confirmation, greedy for money, lack of adequate interaction with the patient, not having the necessary expertise, lack of infrastructure availability for investigation, etc. A person working in Cement factory need not have lung cancer. It may be just inflammation of the lungs.
How to avoid such instances? One measure I can think of is stringent laws to prosecute such erring doctors and laboratories, free legal help for the poor from NGOs to fight in courts, and more important is the medical ethics which is missing these days.

Malaysia today

Malaysia is one of the south-east Asia's most vibrant economies. It is supposed to be very secular, in spite of the fact that it is an Islamic republic with a majority of muslim population in most of its states and an economically-powerful Chinese and not so well off Indian communities. It is one of the region's most popular key tourist destinations, offering excellent beaches, brilliant scenery and dense rainforests in the eastern states.

Ethnic Malays comprise some 60% of the population. Chinese constitute around 25%; Indians around 10% and indigenous peoples make up the rest. The communities used to coexist in relative harmony.

Now, the country is facing serious challenge - politically in the form of sustaining stability in the face of religious differences. The country seems to come under the influence of muslim religious fundamentalists. The Indian communities, living in Malaysia for generations, are targeted. The Tamils seem to be facing racial discrimination. It is time that the rulers take measures to protect the country from international criticism for human right violations, which will ultimately affect one of the major money earning industries for the country, i.e. tourism.