Foreign Workers
My pharmacy serves the orthopedic clinics and we get quite a number of foreign workers, usually Bangladeshi, coming in for consultation after industrial accidents and the likes. What I cannot understand is how they had managed to come into Singapore not knowing how to speak proper English. Okay, to be fair not all Singaporeans speak English anyway, but you have to at least speak one of the 4 major languages in Singapore. Even if I do not understand a single work of Tamil or Berhasa Melayu, at least I know who to get help from. If you only speak Bangla then things get really tough.
It becomes a frustration just trying to get past the routine steps of checking for identification and then checking for drug allergies. I came to realise that less than 50% know what is an "appointment card", but more than 99% know what is a "work permit", so I gave up on asking them for their appointment cards for identification purpose. I'd rather wait a few more seconds for them to dig out their work permit then to mime and think of a synonym for "appointment card" in simpler English, if there is one to begin with.
Checking for drug allergies is like going through some torture routine, for both me and the patient. They do not understand the question, "Do you have any drug allergies?" Most will give me a puzzled look, and I will raise a phantom eyebrow meaning "great, it's time to practise those rusty paraphrasing skills I learned years back when I did general paper at A-levels". So I attempted again. "Any medicine you cannot take?" More puzzled looks; I guess it is just one too many words for them to process. By then, I would given up on those who gave me puzzled looks twice in a row. I would check the computer system in hope that the sometimes not reliable doctors have updated the patient drug allergies info. Then there will be those who attempt to tell me they have "a little allergy" or "allergy have" and then start scratching their skins. When you probe further to find out which drug they are allergic to, they give you the puzzled look again. *roll my eyes*
After getting past the identification and drug allergies checks, the next set of problem comes. For some reasons I do not understand, the orthopedic doctors like to give multiple painkillers for their patients regardless of their capability to understand when they need to use the medicine. Of course, it is my job to educate the patients on when to use which painkiller, but it is hard when the other party is not capable of processing the information due to language barrier. For ages I had problems telling them that paracetamol is only used for mild pain and the NSAIDs or tramadol are used in moderate or severe pain respectively. Well, that was until one of my techs introduced me to the phrase "many many pain". So paracetamol is for pain, and NSAIDs or tramadol are for "many many pain". I cringe whenever I hear myself say that, but the weirdest thing is the foreign workers actually do understand what I mean when I use that phrase. So much for my effort in trying to speak proper English.
What comes after that is something that really annoys me. 6 out of 10 times when I ask for payment, the foreign workers will tell me the company will pay. When you ask for the letter of guarantee (LOG)/ company letter (after paraphrasing) as proof, they will tell you there is no LOG. Then I start giving them the long lecture, which I know they do not understand half its content, on the need for the LOG else I cannot bill the company etc etc. It always end up with me telling them, with a super black face to emphasize the point, I am not giving them any more medicine the next time if they do not present the LOG. And don't even think about cheating. I will always leave a pop-up message in the dispensing program that states the day when I informed the patient to obtain the LOG from their company and not to supply any more medicine if the patient only comes with a song on his company's willingness to pay the medicine bill.
It becomes a frustration just trying to get past the routine steps of checking for identification and then checking for drug allergies. I came to realise that less than 50% know what is an "appointment card", but more than 99% know what is a "work permit", so I gave up on asking them for their appointment cards for identification purpose. I'd rather wait a few more seconds for them to dig out their work permit then to mime and think of a synonym for "appointment card" in simpler English, if there is one to begin with.
Checking for drug allergies is like going through some torture routine, for both me and the patient. They do not understand the question, "Do you have any drug allergies?" Most will give me a puzzled look, and I will raise a phantom eyebrow meaning "great, it's time to practise those rusty paraphrasing skills I learned years back when I did general paper at A-levels". So I attempted again. "Any medicine you cannot take?" More puzzled looks; I guess it is just one too many words for them to process. By then, I would given up on those who gave me puzzled looks twice in a row. I would check the computer system in hope that the sometimes not reliable doctors have updated the patient drug allergies info. Then there will be those who attempt to tell me they have "a little allergy" or "allergy have" and then start scratching their skins. When you probe further to find out which drug they are allergic to, they give you the puzzled look again. *roll my eyes*
After getting past the identification and drug allergies checks, the next set of problem comes. For some reasons I do not understand, the orthopedic doctors like to give multiple painkillers for their patients regardless of their capability to understand when they need to use the medicine. Of course, it is my job to educate the patients on when to use which painkiller, but it is hard when the other party is not capable of processing the information due to language barrier. For ages I had problems telling them that paracetamol is only used for mild pain and the NSAIDs or tramadol are used in moderate or severe pain respectively. Well, that was until one of my techs introduced me to the phrase "many many pain". So paracetamol is for pain, and NSAIDs or tramadol are for "many many pain". I cringe whenever I hear myself say that, but the weirdest thing is the foreign workers actually do understand what I mean when I use that phrase. So much for my effort in trying to speak proper English.
What comes after that is something that really annoys me. 6 out of 10 times when I ask for payment, the foreign workers will tell me the company will pay. When you ask for the letter of guarantee (LOG)/ company letter (after paraphrasing) as proof, they will tell you there is no LOG. Then I start giving them the long lecture, which I know they do not understand half its content, on the need for the LOG else I cannot bill the company etc etc. It always end up with me telling them, with a super black face to emphasize the point, I am not giving them any more medicine the next time if they do not present the LOG. And don't even think about cheating. I will always leave a pop-up message in the dispensing program that states the day when I informed the patient to obtain the LOG from their company and not to supply any more medicine if the patient only comes with a song on his company's willingness to pay the medicine bill.
posted by Yamosh at 11:02 PM
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