So that's my farking repackaged Thai pills. With freaking expensive rheumatism cream, and my X-rays in the background. Strangely, I realised if you ever have to wait for X-rays for a couple of days, its bullshit. I got it immediately and if you see a private consultant a Mt Alv or Mt Eliz, you can almost quickly jump queues at the radiology. And you get the X-rays within 5 mins. Anyway from dating someone from medical sales line, I came to know why doctors repackaged your cough mixture into bottles (which are sold cheaply by bulks like those cheap chilli sauces you get in squishy bottles at hawker centres instead of individually packed ones), and also pills which actually have their own boxes but repacked to you because some of them actually came in boxes that are labelled:
Imagine this. My doctor charges me $200 for a referred consultation for 10 mins. (If you came in without referral or in an emergency, the rates go up 50% more). That's $1200/hr!! Excluding the medicine he makes ripping me off with samples (ok fine samples basically means reduced pricing, so you buy 20 boxes of pills, and the sales rep throw in 5 boxes free, dropping their costs and effectively charging me at a 300% premium) ; I would say he makes easily $1300/hr. So compared to my lawyer whom charges me $400/hr ++, doctors are the men! And me being a employee of an engineering firm, draw a middle income sort of pay - that's what the govt stats listed pay percentile as. This pay basically suck as I put in more after office hours, and given that I work 12-16 hrs a day, I am effectively only earning $20/hr.. that is so lame and depressing.
Anyway do note that not all clinics in Singapore charges you at that premium pricing of each pill you take. You just need to check out the doctors' ride. If its a humble Toyota, your doctor has a conscience. If its a Porsche, and he just runs a normal clinic..well let's just say, it ain't from peddling fake sex drugs or DVDs..
I remember when the NKF fiasco came to light, we realised that they sold subsidise drugs to patients at a supposedly subsidise rate. Well, we soon came to know it meant, its not at cost price, but just that its cheaper than market rate and they still make a good 30-50% margin. So fine, everyone should make some $, but for a charity organisation, it just so sucks because they gather > $70 million in their coffers from public donations and still want to make a margin off their farking "subsidised" medications.
Anyway from this experience, I realised the government can actually defray the increasing healthcare costs easily, by controlling the price of medication instead of allowing profit margins to furnish Ferraris and Porches to doctors akin to Golden taps and first class flights of Charity CEOs.
Oh and another revelation...I start to earn more per hour by working less hours a day!! No wonder recent news showed a decrease in productivity! Inflation up, so we feel poor, so work less to earn more!
And yeah you are farked if you earn < $20/hr in "Sunny" Singapore!
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