Admin stuff

There are a few things about Sibu that will just not sink in unless you are actually here. First of all everyone speaks Iban in Sibu. I mean everyone! Even the Malays speak Iban amongst themselves. Iban is THE lingua franca here. So it sure as hell is difficult to fit in here unless you can speak Iban... or maybe Foochow. Secondly, people here do to a certain extent feel detached from things happening in ‘Malaysia’ proper. In the words of one the ambulance drivers “Sebenarnya kita dekat sini sepatutnya tak payah nak sibuk-sibuk pasal hal Anwar (Ibrahim) ke apa-apa hal kat Semenanjung tu. Diorang kat sana, kita kat sini.” And finally the people here are very religious, especially the Christians. Even more than those in Newcastle. And considering how Christmas is just around the corner, that strong religious belief becomes more apparent now.

On my 2^nd day in Sibu I started off with applying for my work permit. It didn’t take long but it did cost me a bit as I had to take a taxi from my hotel to the Federal Buildings and then to the hospital. Clearly someone has to look into this law. It’s from 1963 ffs!

At the hospital I was introduced to Dr Nolan who is the acting Pengarah as both the Pengarah and Timbalan Pengarah were not around. After some discussion regarding how I wanted to spend the rest of my life (i.e thinking about things or cutting people) I was posted to the emergency department.

I also got to sign the first piece of the puzzle which will in due time become the contract for my quarters application but this was still far from approval. So resigned myself to the fact that I will have to cohabit with the cockroaches for some more nights (the other hotels were full).

The head of the emergency department was a big Malay fellow called Dr Zul who was apparently from Serdang before coming here. I thought he was quite a reasonable guy. I was then introduced to the rest of the team – all of whom were originally from Sarawak, except Ahmad the HO - who was from Kelantan. Later I would find out that there was another guy who was originally from UM and got transferred here before me. But other than that everyone was either from around here or married someone from around here.

Initially I applied for 5 days of leave from Monday to Friday to get myself sorted, thinking that I will get the weekends off. Apparently not. ED uses a shift system, so for the next couple of days I came to work by bus.

I had to wake up early to catch the morning bus to work the next day. While waiting, there was this lady that came to me and offered to sell me a tortoise! What do I do with a tortoise? Apparently I’m supposed to eat it. I politely said that I don’t eat tortoises. I didn’t ask how much.

The ED here is thankfully not the ‘pasar’ that Kajang’s ED is. Things seemed quite under control. This is ironic seeing as how Sibu Hospital actually receives referrals from 6 surrounding district hospitals, the furthest of which is 3 hours by speed boat. The facilities are what you would expect from a district hospital with specialists although it did irk me that UFEME/UPT took 4 hours to complete!! People in Kajang should be grateful to the lab staff there. It’s next to impossible to get BUSE (without the creatinine) within 1 hour and we have to be extra judicious with requesting for CEs.

I really need to get a hold of the language quickly as I’m having huge difficulties communicating with the patients here. Other than that I suppose it could turn out to be fun working in ED here although I was hoping that I get sent to Surgery or Anaesth. I’ll see how it goes. As Iris told me:

“Think of it as an extended elective in Borneo. People pay a lot of money to do their electives in Borneo for 3 months and you get paid to go there... for longer than that.”

The Rajang was not as big as I thought. The water level did come up close to the bank though.

They call Sibu 'The Swan City' but in fact I haven't seen any swan in Sibu except stone ones...

O that's why

I think this place is called "Pintu Gerbang Sibu" or something like that.The hotel I stayed in is behind the white building on the left. This photo has a lot of noise...