I had a frustration day as it was the second time I tried to register my daughter's birth as the previous time the system was down @ GEH. Let you in on the some background why we chose to go to GEH to complete the birth certificate even though our daughter was born in Thomson Medical Centre. You see we wanted to get the perfect birth certificate for our daughter. As such we want her Chinese name to be printed instead of handwritten or pasted on. Apparently, only GEH has that system and according to the ICA hotline, the upgrade is still not able to perform the task that we want.
So what actually happened?
Today I rushed home to pick up my wife to proceed to GEH as the registration counter closes at 4pm. We reached there at about 3.00pm and was at the counter at 3 40pm. The staff attending to us was looking at her watch, as if to indicate to my wife that the counter was about to close already. After some fuss she did service us, however the attitude was not very willing.
After some time, she came back to inform us they were not able to process our request due to the lack of the hospital on the live-birth form. (On retrospect, we were making things difficult as we were frustrated.) She chose not to service us and got someone else to face us and I thought this was very unprofessional. So there was some verbal volleys to and fro, and they called up TMC to verify the case and tried to push the blame to them.
Since the ICA representative there confirmed that with the upgrade of the ICA system, the Chinese name can be printed on birth certificate, we left for TMC to get the chop. While in the car, we were fuming and the frustration built up. We blamed TMC for all the trouble. E
After arrival at the Medical Centre, I dropped my wife off and went to wait at the side of the hospital. Well, I don't know much about what happened when my wife spoke to the staff. However, the Assistant Director of Nursing walked all the way up the slope where my car was parked and apologized for the mistake on behalf of the nurse who dealt with our papers.
Now this is a simple gesture, however it really touched my heart. Imagine the staff made all that effort even though my wife had already accepted her apology and she insisted that she personally come to apologize to me.
Thanks Ms Helen Mah, Assistant Director of Nursing of TMC, you really made my day. You are an Angel.
