If A Very Sick Man Was About to Die, Wouldn't You Help To Let His Mother Know?

Apparently not. Today we look at a human interest story in the Straits Times. To summarise, a man had a stroke and would soon die. His relative tried to contact the man's mother. The Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA), which is also our national issuer of NRICs, knew exactly where the man's mother lived, but refused to reveal the details.

ST June 13, 2008
One last look at prodigal son
ST helps cousin of man in coma to locate his family; son dies 15 minutes after mum leaves hospital
By Teh Joo Lin

MORE than 20 years ago, Mr William Rajasingam Kasinathan became estranged from his family. He lost touch with his mother, sister and son.

... Last week, the 53-year-old prodigal son suffered a stroke and was on his deathbed. And the search was on for his kin.

On Tuesday, mother and son had a reunion of sorts - Mr Kasinathan was comatose - in the intensive care unit of Tan Tock Seng Hospital.

The frail woman gazed upon her son and looked lost as she repeatedly rose from her chair and sat down.

Fifteen minutes after the 78-year-old left the hospital, he died.

It was his cousin, Ms Prem Bir Kaur, 53, who managed to track down the old woman.

Aided by a doctor and a medical social worker, she contacted the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA), the custodian of the national registration records, in the hope of securing an address.

The hospital staff offered to furnish proof that Mr Kasinathan, a bar musician, was in a critical condition so that the ICA could try and contact his mother on Ms Kaur's behalf.

But rules forbade the ICA from revealing her whereabouts, Ms Kaur was told.

On Monday night, she called The Straits Times, which helped her locate Mr Kasinathan's mother by going down a list of possible family names in the phone directory.

When given the news that her son was gravely ill, the old woman told her daughter: 'He's still my son. Take me to see him.'

Ms Kaur is relieved mother and son got to 'meet' one last time but wonders why the ICA would not help her.

She said: 'It's not fair for him to die alone. At least I can say I've tried to fulfil his last wish.'

And why did the ICA not help to fulfil he dying man's last wish? What reason could the ICA possibly have?

An ICA spokesman told The Straits Times that the National Registration Regulations make it an offence for any public officer to disclose to anyone information from its records - on pain of jail time, a fine or both.

The exceptions are few - when it is in the public interest and with the permission of the ICA Commissioner, or for the purpose of criminal proceedings.

This was not a criminal case, so the police could not formally help either.

Dr Teo Ho Pin, who chairs the Government Parliamentary Committee for Law and Home Affairs, agreed it was important to protect the private information of people.

Recently I commented that PAP MP Teo Ho Pin is quite a clever person. After reading the above ST article, and Teo's remark as quoted in it, I feel compelled to withdraw my comment. I no longer think that Teo is very clever.

According to the law, ICA was not allowed to reveal the old lady's address to Prem Bir Kaur. However, there was a very simple solution. ICA could have contacted the old lady directly, by phone or by mail, and said:

"Dear Madam

We were informed by Tan Tock Seng Hospital that your son William Rajasingam Kasinathan is seriously ill in Ward ___. His cousin Ms Prem Bir Kaur has also contacted us about this matter. She has been trying in vain to locate you.

To safeguard your privacy, we have not given them your personal contact details. However, if you wish to know more about the matter, you can directly contact Tan Tock Seng Hospital (tel no. XXXXXXX) or Ms Prem Bir Kaur (tel no. YYYYYY) yourself."

Simple as that. As I see it, there could only have been two reasons why ICA didn't do it:

(1) ICA is just too stupid; or
(2) ICA just can't be bothered.

Either way, it just reflects very badly on the ICA.

On a separate note, isn't it really quite ironic? If you have died in hospital without signing the opt-out form, the government has the legal right to immediately cut out your organs for transplant purposes. But while you're dying in hospital, the government won't even help to let your mother know.

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Tomorrow's Model

In response to my previous post, a reader wrote:

Any comments on the legal industry in general and why you have chosen to leave the legal industry?

I enjoyed my previous job, and I like my ex-colleagues (a few of them, including my ex-boss, even read this blog from time to time). I left for reasons which I think they respect and understand very well: (a) new learning opportunities, and (b) better remuneration prospects. They wish me well, and so do I. And that’s that.

My father, who has retired, is always a little alarmed to hear that I’m changing jobs again. He belongs (obviously) to an older generation. For more than three decades, he worked for the same company. I don’t think it ever seriously crossed his mind to change jobs.

Times are different now. My current organization gives out “long service” awards for employees who reach the five-year mark – in other words, five years of service is already considered long. Another anecdote - during my recent induction course, each new employee received his security access pass, which had a five-year validity period. Someone quipped, “Wow, this bank sure is optimistic.”

Employee loyalty is dead, because employer loyalty is dead. This is the reality of the modern working world. People are just digits, and departments are just little square boxes, on a corporate organisation chart. Tomorrow, the organization chart could change - because of a merger or acquisition; or an outsourcing of jobs into India; or a restructuring exercise to cut costs. And some employees will just have to go.

So the modern employee must learn to take care of himself. Employability is more important than employment. You have a personal responsibility to keep your own skills and knowledge relevant. If a better opportunity comes along, take it if an objective, hard-headed analysis tells you that you should.

In my opinion, there is a common mistake that many people make when planning their careers - they rely on yesterday’s model of the world. In fact, they should rely on today’s model of the world, or better still, tomorrow’s model. Of course, no one can predict the future with 100% accuracy. However, because the world is changing so quickly, yesterday’s model, even if true today, will almost certainly be wrong by tomorrow.

I left the legal industry for my new job, because I felt that this was the strategically optimal move for me. Of course, yesterday’s model of the world would suggest that I’m making a bad move. After all, in yesterday’s model, Singaporeans who can should always strive to be doctors, lawyers or PSC scholars, shouldn't they?

However, in a possible tomorrow’s model, Singapore will be flooded by hordes of doctors from India, and doctors' salaries will be dampened. The noble aspects of the profession will become increasingly obscured by the profit-driven, commercial aspects, as Singapore strives to become a regional medical hub.

Meanwhile, PSC scholarships may become viewed as career traps for the bright but unwary. Outstanding young people may become tied down to a little red dot, even though they are so talented that the whole world could have been their oyster.

As for lawyers in private practice, they may continue working harder and worker to help the investment banks make more money. Their personal lives suffer, and yet in the end, they may end up earning considerably less than the investment bankers themselves.

Some would say that I am wrong. Others would say that my model of tomorrow has already happened today. What do you think?

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To Join or Not to Join

Recently I said that I would change the focus of my blog. I had planned to make it more practical and useful for the average Singaporean, taking into consideration the prevailing social trends, government policies etc in this country.

Well, here goes. Today we look at HR policies in the civil service. There are certain things you ought to know, before you decide to join or not to join the civil service.

ST April 14, 2007
Promotion in Civil Service based on merit

I REFER to the letter, 'Is promotion in Civil Service based on tenure?' (ST, April 11), by Ms Elsie Tan Hwee Lian.

To be promoted, a civil servant has to show potential to handle a bigger job. A person with a high potential can expect to progress more quickly, provided he is also a consistently good performer.

An officer who does not show the potential to take on greater responsibilities will not be promoted, even if he has many years of service. Promotion is based on merit and not automatic, according to his years of service.

Ms Tan also noted that there are officers who continue to perform the same job after promotion. Unlike the private sector, civil servants are paid according to their salary grade and not by job appointment.

It is not unusual to have officers doing higher-level jobs while still in a lower grade. This is to stretch and test them. They will be promoted to the grade commensurate with the job size only when they are able to handle the higher job competently.

All Civil Service salary schemes have a performance-bonus component. Those who do well will be paid performance bonuses, with the better ones getting a higher quantum. Those who just meet the job requirements or under-perform will not get any performance bonus.

Most of our graduate schemes have a variable merit-increment system, where the annual increments are linked to performance.

In short, the appraisal system ensures that officers receive salaries that are commensurate with their contributions, abilities and potential.

Ong Toon Hui (Ms)
Director, Leadership Development
Public Service Division
Prime Minister's Office

This letter is well-written. It is a very careful, very deliberate gloss, over actual reality. Nothing that the letter says is actually untrue. Yet the overall picture that the letter does paint is quite misleading.

To understand how the system works, you first have to understand that performance and potential mean two completely different things in the civil service. They lead to very different, very distinct consequences in the official appraisal system.

For example, a civil servant may be judged to have very high potential, even though his performance is very poor. Alternatively, his performance may be judged to be utterly outstanding, and yet his potential may be judged to be extremely low.

Performance is linked to your annual bonuses and increments. Whereas potential is linked to your promotions. So Ms Ong Toon Hui is correct to say that those who perform well in their jobs will get bigger bonuses.

What Ms Ong isn't telling you is that those who perform well in their jobs may never get promoted. That's because promotions depend on your potential, and potential has nothing to do with performance.

Okay, then. How is a person's potential assessed or measured? It is measured by your CEP score. "CEP" stands for Current Estimated Potential. Theoretically, CEP measures the level of certain inherent, long-term qualities in each employee.

What this means is that once you have been assigned your CEP score, the civil service is probably not going to change that score (at least for the next seven or eight years, if ever). After all, CEP is a measure of certain inherent, long-term qualities in you - which cannot change.

Now, the civil service will assign you a CEP score, on your first day of work. Actually, that is untrue - your CEP score is assigned to you, even before you start work. Thus you can see that in terms of actual work, nothing that you actually do (whether it is utterly brilliant, or utterly dumb) can actually affect your CEP score.

The civil service generally does not tell individual employees what their CEP score is. (If such disclosures were made, no doubt some people would resign in double quick time. Then who would be left to do the donkey work?)

CEP scores depend largely on your educational qualifications (one or two ministries will also consider other things - for example, the Defence Ministry would consider your OCS performance) . There is a pecking order. PSC Scholars automatically get an extremely high CEP score, even before they start work. Non-scholars with a basic degree, no honours, go to the bottom of the pecking order.

I hope that by now, the implications are becomng clear.

If you do badly in school, and then you join the civil service, you will have a low CEP score. Even if you subsequently produce the most utterly outstanding performance year after year after year, you will still get promoted very slowly, if at all.

That's because your potential has been assessed to be low, and CEP is a measure of your inherent, long-term qualities which can't change.

In contrast, suppose a PSC scholar performs quite badly year after year after year. He will not get good bonuses, because bonuses are linked to performance. However, since his CEP score is high, he will still get promoted year after year after year. That's because CEP is a measure of his inherent, long-term qualities which can't change.

Thus how much career success you can achieve in the civil service, by the age of 45 or 50, has already been determined. It was determined when you were 22 or 24 years, at the time you first joined the civil service, on your very first day at work. Sorry, before your first day at work.

Below is an excerpt from an essay written by a US military officer, who had spent some time studying the Singapore Armed Forces. This part of his essay focuses on how SAF scholars and non-scholars are promoted differently. Note that the Government of Singapore uses essentially the same appraisal system for all government ministries (including the Ministry of Defence). So the excerpt below gives you a good idea of how the entire civil service, in general, operates:

"After being awarded a scholarship, scholar officers are commissioned four months ahead of their peers amd miss the second half of their professional military training during OCS. Although they make up some of this training during their academic summers, they are still very inexperienced compared to their peers who have spent four years in operational service.

Despite this vast difference in experience, scholar officers still will be promoted to captain one year after graduation at approximately the same time as their nonscholar peers. This program results in scholar officers being promoted far faster than their nonscholarship peers, despite the fact that they have considerably less operational experience.

.... The SAF uses a system in which officers have a currently estimated potential to determine how far an officer can go and terminal rank during his or her career. For the most part, this CEP is formed during OCS based on the officer's cadet performance and educational background ....

An officer's CEP spells out his or her career path for assignments, education opportunities, promotion and attendance at military schools. The result of this system is that officers are selected and groomed for even the most senior leadership positions in the SAF based on little more than on how they performed as a cadet during OCS and the strength of their high school transcript."

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