Halloween Special: Those Little Devils

I remember last time as a kid, I go see a lokun, always very scared. My neighbourhood family doctor was not at all friendly, he was the very stern, never really smile type. In the clinic, the mothers would be busy telling the kids to keep quiet and if the children were too rowdy, they were brought outside for a good scolding. In fact when I was growing up in the 70s/ 80s, you hardly see rowdy kids in clinic because parents only bring you to a doctor if you are really really sick (or not just drink leng yong at home la).

Yes, in those days, clinic was quiet except for some "Shhhssshh" from parents. The kids were all waiting and trembling in fear of seeing the doctor. It didn't help that in those days, lokuns also like to give injections for everything. Fever, kennah jab. Vomit kennah job. Stomache, kennah jab. Ah pek cannot mari kita also kennah jab (but by chiobu nurse)! My mother was a firm believer in injections and always said, "Ah boy ar, get injection liao then immediately will recover!"

Funny thing is that the injections really worked. Even funnier thing is that until today I cannot completely figure out what the GP jabbed me with all those times...

But injections are not the point of this post......

Fast forward 30 years, kids RULE the clinic. These days as we become more affluent, parents bring their kids to a paediatrician rather than your friendly neighbourhood GP. The paeds clinic are nicely decorated in bright colours and have play areas for the children. The children arrive in style inside their gi-normous ride, the branded strollers! Parents will then park these ostentatious things strategically so as to block everyone else in their way.

Instead of a quiet and sterile atmosphere, you have kids screaming and wailing at the top of their voice. Instead of adults disciplining kids, they are running after them, coaxing, pandering and bribing them with sweets, iPads and PSPs. The kid has got to wait for the doctor, WAIL. The kid has got to get his temperature taken, WAIL. The kid has got to be auscultated by the doctor, WAIL WAIL. The kid has got to get an injection, both kid and mother WAIL WAIL WAIL.

Of course kids don't cry all the time. Sometimes they enjoy themselves sucking lollipop and leaving their sticky fingerprints and HFMD enterovirus all over the toys. This is when the parents start trying to get them to perform tricks like clapping hands, hi-fives, roll overs, sit, fetch the frisbee..... And the parents coo over their children, "OOoooooo look so cute, ar boy just made an angry face at the doctor." Man, no wonder the kids are pissed; being treated like circus monkeys.

And me in a not too distant clinic room (heng I don't see kids) can almost hear those kids shouting, "WE ARE THE KINGS, YOU OLD FROGGIES GET OUT OF THE WAY!"

Moral of the story?

from http://www.beansbeans.blogspot.sg/

If you don't know what to dress up as during Halloween, why not try dressing up as one of these little devils. They will surely scare the hell out of your healthcare-worker-friends!!!