Casino Yeo: Too Bad You're Not a Familee Member! You Die Your Own Biz!

[makapaaa]

May 18, 2010

MFA committed to help citizens but within law of host nation

<!-- by line --><!-- end by line -->
<!-- end left side bar --><!-- story content : start -->
I THANK Ms Wong Chia Lee for her feedback last Saturday, 'Stuck in Shanghai - kindness from all except consulate'. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) takes its commitment to provide consular assistance to Singaporeans in distress overseas very seriously.
We understand the trying circumstances that our fellow citizens sometimes face when they are overseas.
Ms Wong had approached the Singapore Consulate-General in Shanghai on April 19 for assistance. Her China visa had expired by then and she admitted that she had overstayed by two days. She wanted the assistance of the consulate-general to have it extended for her and to provide a letter detailing the reasons for her overstaying and a waiver of the penalties for overstaying.
The Singapore consular officer who attended to her explained that the consulate-general could not do so as it is a Chinese requirement that any extension had to be applied for in person.
The consulate-general nevertheless assisted Ms Wong to make an appointment with the Shanghai Exit-Entry Administration Bureau. A request was also made for the bureau to, if possible, resolve her case expeditiously, given her impending travels.
The consulate-general maintained daily contact with the bureau on Ms Wong's case and kept her updated. Ms Wong left Shanghai on April 23.
Ms Wong should appreciate that while we try our best to provide the necessary consular assistance to all Singaporeans, such assistance must be in accordance with the rules and regulations of the country that we are in - in this instance, China. We hope Ms Wong understands that just as Singapore expects all foreign nationals in Singapore to respect our rules and regulations, we are not in a position to break Chinese regulations or ask the Chinese authorities to overlook their own rules to help her.
The ministry wishes to remind all Singaporeans to check the visa policies of the countries they are travelling to before they depart Singapore.
Sudesh Maniar
Director, Public Affairs,
Ministry of Foreign Affairs

 

[makapaaa]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1445850/No-10-helped-leaders-wife-to-jump-NHS-queue.html
No 10 'helped leader's wife to jump NHS queue'



By Alex Spillius in Bangkok, Toby Helm and Celia Hall
Published: 12:01AM GMT 04 Nov 2003

The wife of Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore's founding father, was pushed ahead in the queue for emergency treatment at an NHS hospital after Government officials intervened on her behalf, it was claimed yesterday.
Mr Lee said that his wife, Kwa Geok Choo, 82, who had suffered a stroke, was given a brain scan four and a half hours earlier than planned at the Royal London Hospital after medical staff were contacted by Downing Street.
<!-- BEFORE ACI -->On arrival at the NHS hospital in the early hours of last Monday, Mr Lee said he was horrified to be told that his wife was "not as important" as three heart attack patients also awaiting treatment.

Staff told the former prime minister that she would have to wait until 8am for a scan.
At 2am, a despairing Mr Lee rang his High Commissioner, Michael Teo, who, he said, "contacted No 10".
=> If this is not asking the embassy to break the local regulations, what is? Any more doubt the FAPee TRAITORS' overpaid conular staff (by Sporns blood and coffin money) are really meant to serve the Familee members?
"Because of 10 Downing Street the CT scan was done at 3.30am," said an emotional Mr Lee as he recounted the experience after the couple's return home. "And the blood clot could be seen clearly."
Despite the swift treatment, Mr Lee was critical of the NHS and the hospital and decided to fly his wife back to Singapore in a specially converted jet, against the advice of the doctors.
Yesterday, both Downing Street and the Foreign Office denied intervening in any way to accelerate the treatment for Mrs Lee who had collapsed while staying at the Four Seasons Hotel in Canary Wharf, east London.
A Downing Street spokesman said the first it had heard of Mrs Lee's problem was at around 5am, after her treatment, when a policeman accompanying the couple rang to pass on information. "We did not intervene in any way at all," he said.
A Foreign Office official said that a late-night duty officer was contacted by the Singapore High Commission at 12.30am to say Mrs Lee had been taken to the Royal London Hospital.
The duty officer then rang the hospital's accident and emergency department to check she was there and spoke briefly to a nurse.
But the spokesman said there was no plea for special treatment.
"At no point did he seek to get preferential treatment for Mrs Lee," he said. "We recognise that it would be entirely inappropriate to do so."
The spokesman said the reason that the official rang the hospital was because the caller from the High Commission had seemed "very vexed" and he needed to establish the facts.
=> If she's an ordinary Sporns, would the embassy dog be so 'vexed'?
Mr Lee was left umimpressed by the NHS. He told how the couple had had to wait 45 minutes for an ambulance to arrive at the hotel, for a 10-minute journey to the hospital. London Ambulance Service's log differed from Mr Lee's account in some of the timings, but an LAS spokesman admitted that Mrs Lee had waited too long.
=> Oh, the Old Fart only allows himself to lie with impunity!
"We received the call at 12.20 am and reached the patient at two minutes past one, which is about 40 minutes. We are trying to find out what the problem was on this occasion," he said.
Doctors at the Royal London advised Mr Lee to keep his wife there for three weeks until she stabilised fully, but he preferred to run the risk of flying her home for 14 hours on Singapore Airlines just three days after her collapse.
A passenger jet was converted into a "mobile hospital" with two intensive care nurses, two doctors, oxygen and a drip and flown from Singapore.
=> Is this not 'breaking the rule again'?
"We weighed the odds and decided to take the risk," said Mr Lee. "They were sure she wouldn't bleed but going on the aircraft she can have a spasm, then big trouble," he said.
His wife is now recovering at Singapore General Hospital.
The Royal London Hospital declined to comment directly on the case.
A spokesman said: "Barts and the London NHS Trust has a duty to protect patient confidentiality and is unable to discuss an individual patient's care without their consent.
"We can confirm, however, that Barts and the London is a teaching hospital trust with neurology as a speciality.
"Should a patient present themselves to the A & E department at the Royal London Hospital with neurological problems at any time of the day or night, they would undergo a period of examination, resuscitation, and preliminary investigations and further diagnosis imaging, such as CT scanning, on the basis of clinical need.
"Patients are assessed and treated according to clinical priority. No patient would be prioritised to the clinical detriment of other patients."
Mr Lee, who like his wife of 56 years was educated at Cambridge, said of the Royal London: "Once upon a time, it was a wonderful hospital.
"But after 40-plus years the system cannot deliver. There's no connection between those in the system and the patients."

 

[Received_by_Kings]

The Singapore consultate-general probably did his best under what was possible for her.

Singapore in the world is a smaller and inferior country to China, Japan, United States and even South Korea among others so they cannot really afford to get more assertive with the laws of the host nations.