They are supposed to be esteemed professionals but the way doctors and dentists are scamming the system and their patients raises alarm bells that so many of them are merely wolves in sheep’s clothing.
The latest news on the suspension and police referral of 10 clinics from the Community Health Assist Scheme (CHAS) for “severe non-compliance” is only the tip of the iceberg.
In recent months, we have had scores of dentists being charged and suspended for making fraudulent Medisave claims, among other misdemeanours.
When professionals like doctors and dentists resort to cheating and scamming with regularity, it is a worrying sign. For every one who gets caught, how many more get away scot-free?
Most actually do get away with “cheating” routinely. Go for any procedure or surgery and the question asked is: Are you covered by insurance? If so, you know the bill is going to be jacked up multi-fold.
Is this how the system is supposed to work? Why hasn’t something been done about it? Ultimately, when insurance and MediShield premiums go up, the patients are the ones who bear the brunt of it.
If you recall, we have also been told that those who make no more than $500,000 a year are “very very mediocre people.” Do doctors and dentists want to be considered “very very mediocre people.”?
It would seem that by hook or by crook, they have to be in the million dollar club of ministers.
And since ministerial salaries are pegged to the highest earners in the private sector, this is the scenario before us: the more greedy doctors and dentists and other top professionals are, the more ministers stand to benefit.
Isn’t that simple logic on a perverse situation?
We could say it all starts from the top. When money is never enough, when greed becomes a common denominator for those at the pinnacle, we ought to worry where our society is heading.
Greed, they say, is a bottomless pit. Are we in a free fall and we don’t even have a clue as to where the bottom is?