ONE of the friends who was with Singaporean Justinian Tan when he was hit by a car in Johor Baru, has allowed that distress and language barrier could have caused them to misunderstand the situation at the hospital where Tan was sent for treatment on August 25.

Joshua De Rozario told the Straits Times that due to the distress that they were experiencing, the wait for the ambulance had “felt like 30 minutes” even though the hospital log showed differently.

There could also have been a “miscommunication” at the hospital that had caused him and his friends to think that they were required to pay a deposit before Tan could be attended to.

“When the accident happened, a lot of things were going on at once, so the wait for help to come felt really long then. I thought it took 30 minutes but their logs said differently,” said Mr De Rozario.

“There were quite a lot of people there and someone else called the ambulance. We were in a distressed situation and didn’t know what to do. In that situation, I didn’t have a sense of the time and it did feel like 30 minutes.

“When we got to the hospital, they started treating him straightaway but they were speaking Malay and we were speaking English and we had difficulties communicating. 

Lost in translation

“At that point of time, what I heard was that we had to pay and in cash – it couldn’t be in card. We didn’t have a large sum of money on us and we had to run around finding an ATM. From our point of view then, it felt like we had to pay first.

“Nothing was really communicated properly so it could have been a miscommunication. We didn’t even know where he was at the time, but after we paid they told us to go to the red zone. 

“Truth be told, I don’t know and I can’t comment on whether the hospital did all they could. I’m not medically trained and we had communication problems because we did not speak much Malay. So we thought it was better to bring him back. 

“Perhaps there were things lost in translation.”

De Rozario was in Johor Baru for supper with Tan and four more friends when Tan was hit by a car on August 24. Tan was brought to the Sultan Aminah Hospital to be treated, but the friends decided on a discharge so that Tan could be brought back to Singapore for medical attention. Tan subsequently died.

The friends then went to the Singapore media with their account of the incident, which has since been refuted by the Malaysian Health Ministry (MoH).

Director-general of MoH Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said Tan’s relatives had chosen to have him discharged and moved to a Singapore hospital even though they understood the risk in delaying treatment.

He said Malaysian public hospitals were also not in the practice of demanding for money upfront before providing treatment in cases of emergency.

He also denied the claim that the ambulance took 30 minutes to arrive, saying that the record showed that it was despatched within two minutes after the distress call was received.

“The emergency call was made at 2.57am on August 25 and the ambulance left at 2.59am, arriving at the scene at 3.10am. It departed the scene at 3.15am,” he said.

De Rozario said the friends had called the media hoping that it could help with the arrest of the hit-and-run driver and to make Singaporeans, who regularly hop across the Causeway to eat and shop, realise that such an emergency situation could arise.

“We also realised that in Malaysia we didn’t know what to do. Other people had to give us the embassy number and helped us in that situation. 

“I’m saying all this not to attack the system there because I understand they operate differently and we might not have the privileges that we do in our own country.

“By speaking to the media, I want to make Singaporeans aware of the need to know emergency numbers, for example. So many of us go to JB just for supper or shopping and we don’t realise we don’t actually know what to do when something happens there. That’s the point we want to convey.

“It’s not about wanting to get revenge, because that is not going to bring Justinian back. We want to close it and move on.” – September 1, 2017.