Singapore at the bleeding edge of medical services

In case you don’t understand Mandarin, this piece of news is about a pregnant woman named Swee Lay Kuan who went to Raffles Hospital to deliver, then bled to death. After she delivered twins, she continued bleeding. The doctors ordered extra blood units for transfusion but this was disallowed by the hospital managers (as all extra blood units must be authorised by hospital managers in a stupid policy written by stupid policymakers). Her husband, Jason Low, was told by hospital staff clearly that until he gets enough people to donate blood, his wife wouldn’t be given extra blood transfusions. So he desperately SMSed and got 200 family and friends on a Sunday to turn up at the Blood Bank, only to find it shut as they were too early, and the staff within refused to open the doors any earlier. Meanwhile, his wife bled to death.

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