Yours Toothfully by Dr Chan Joon Yee

If something is not officially allowed in Singapore, you can assume that it isn’t allowed. That’s why we must always seek permission to do something which no one else has been doing. But what if those who have the authority to grant us permission to do new things are not very sure about those new things themselves? What if these folks don’t want to have anything to do with the problems which may arise?

The result would most likely be a set of regulations friendly enough to sound pro-busniess yet vague enough for the gatekeepers to deny that they had ever authorised an entry into a particular sector. To the public/consumers, vague regulations don’t really matter. They have a place to sought services. They also have a place to lodge complaints. They are not the ones who need to follow the rules.

The ones getting the headaches are the service providers who need to interpret the regulations and provide their services within the vaguely marked boundaries. Approaching the policy makers for clarification on exactly what is allowed and what isn’t allowed is unlikely to make matters clearer because these folks are the people you complain to and not complain about. If the teacher allowed a student to do something and he got into trouble, the teacher needs some leeway to deny that she had actually allowed the student to cause the destruction.

When you have these players on a stage: the kiasu controllers, the kiasi service providers and the difficult consumer, the whole play will grind to a stalemate and stagnation. At the end of the day, everyone just wants to have someone else to blame when something goes wrong.

The moral of the story? Don’t get into a profession that is highly regulated if you want to make some serious money. Getting into a profession that is saturated and highly regulated will guarantee poor returns. The gap between TCM practitioners and Western “cough and cold” GPs is narrowing. The gap between beauticians and aesthetic GPs is widening the other way, with the former fast gaining ground. An aesthetic GP I spoke to just a couple of days ago told me quite frankly that she may be able to do more as a beautician - especially when people know that she is a doctor. What an irony.

How’s business? Well, let’s say that things could be better, especially after that near 100% increase in rental. If things get a little quiet at the office, I think we can all try our luck with a little terrorist hunting. $50,000 reward is it? Why not take a walk through all our nature reserves? Perhaps one lucky guy may run into Mas Selamat who has gained no small measure of respected notoriety by outwitting our “world class” police force.

The $50,000 aside, I think it would be an honour catch this guy after weeks of fruitless police effort. Whatever effort was put in is probably not made known to the public in view of “national interests”. At any rate, with talk like this:

“However, at this point in time, we do not think Singaporeans need the incentive of a reward in order to help the country for a matter as serious as this.”

and this:

Dr Teo Ho Pin, who chairs the Government Parliamentary Committee for Home Affairs and Law, told The Straits Times yesterday that any effort by the community to help capture Mas Selamat as soon as possible was ‘definitely welcome’.

It would seem to many of us that folks to whom we entrust our national security are not particularly worried about not catching this guy! My goodness. It might not be such a bad idea for dentists to arm themselves with their scalpels and mallets and head for the forests - all for the sake of our own security and pockets.

If yours truly manages to catch him, I would need to apologise to my patients for taking a one-month leave to the Himalayas. And if I find the yeti …