Predictably, I don’t read the Star all that often. Luckily, chair of the Bar Council’s Human Rights Committee Mr. Andrew Khoo keeps a better watch, and has done an excellent job in tearing apart the xenophobic, discriminatory remarks made by my best fren Wong Chun Wai.
I’ll admit I noticed he wrote a piece or two in recent times that wasn’t complete crap, but here, he has once again succumbed to utter nonsense.
I would like to emphasise my agreement that it is likely because of our failure to ensure the welfare of migrant labour that contributes to chronic ill health among the community.
Having been to a detention centre for undocumented migrants, I challenge anyone to say that we have provided adequate health infrastructure and are not ourselves responsible for the ease at which disease can spread among this population.
Anyway, I’ll let Andrew (who I had the pleasure of hanging out with briefly last week) do the talking:
Dear Dato’ Wong Chun Wai,
I have to place on record my deep disappointment at your recent article in The Sunday Star of 17 May 2009, under the title “A Disease Not To Be Sneezed At”. You have in essence attributed the incidence and resurgence of certain diseases in our country to the presence of migrant workers and illegal immigrants. However the only factual basis for the views you expressed were 2 reports, one from 2000 and another from 2004. Indeed the 2004 report to which you referred merely documented the incidence of certain diseases amongst 1 million foreign workers examined nationwide. No comparison was made with any contemporaneous or subsequent study of the incidence of such diseases amongst Malaysians to establish any causal link. In any event, neither of these reports constitutes up-to-date evidence to support your opinion. The rest of the references were anecdotal in nature and not substantiated.
Even when writing about the very recent outbreak of leptospirosis at the Juru Detention Camp, you chose to ignore the much more fundamental point, which is that the Government is incarcerating foreign nationals in places and under conditions which are totally unhygienic. At the very least, their water supply is contaminated. Instead, you chose to conclude from this reference to the incidence of leptospirosis that “it is worrying that Malaysia is facing the return of diseases eliminated decades ago”. When did we eliminate leptospirosis? And how did this particular outbreak occur? Are you saying the foreign nationals brought leptospirosis into Malaysia? If so, how did they do it, given that it arises from consuming water contaminated by animal urine? Did they bring in their own water? Did they smuggle their own animals across our borders? Your conclusion is simply preposterous and misplaced in this regard.
Although your article started with an account of your experience being delayed by medical checks when visiting Shenzen, where ironically YOU may have been the foreign national suspected of bringing disease into China, and you made some references to borderless international travel, the better part of your article was devoted essentially to blaming migrant workers and illegal immigrants for much of the resurgent health problems in Malaysia. As you wrote: “It would not be wrong to say that Malaysia is facing the emergence and re-emergence of diseases because of these foreigners.” The blame is clear: “because of these foreigners”. The contempt captured in the words “these foreigners” is palpable. No attempt was made to include in the reference to “these foreigners” the well-heeled travellers who could be bringing influenza A (H1N1) to Malaysia. It instantly reminded me of the favoured practice of our glorious men and women in blue of blaming foreign nationals for the increase in the incidence of crime in Malaysia. By attempting to pinpoint someone else as being the cause of our problems, we offer a false panacea. We are not to blame. We are not responsible. It is not because of us, but because of them, “these foreigners”. Remove them, and the problem is also removed.
Such a simplistic analysis does a great disservice to the proper understanding of the public health and safety concerns that face us as a nation. When we mis-diagnose the problem, we mis-prescribe the solution. While I do not deny that these public health and safety concerns exist, their causes are myriad and manifold. By choosing to demonise a particular segment of our society as being the root cause of these problems, we encourage xenophobia, the unfounded and irrational fear of foreigners amongst us. We promote hate and division. We justify injustice, ill-treatment and the violation of their basic human rights. Their crime: to belong to an economic and social underclass.
True, we already have ghettoes and no-go areas in some of our housing areas. The Selayang market immediately comes to mind. But the solution is not to label every foreigner as a threat to national security or a risk to public health and safety, or an economic competitor. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Malaysia has reported, for example, that there are 47,000 nationals from Myanmar registered with them, with their refugee status still being determined. As many more are unregistered. 7,000 of them are of school-going age. What we need to do is to register them, nourish them, accommodate them, care for their health and well-being, educate them, employ them. So long as they remain on the periphery of society, they will be categorised as “non-persons” (since Malaysia has not signed the 1951 Convention on Refugees and does not recognise the concept of a refugee in our laws) and be viewed as an anonymous and faceless but ever-present threat or risk.
Our basic common humanity and, for those of us who are people of faith, our religious values demand no less: that they be treated with dignity and compassion. Labelling them as dirty, diseased and dangerous and blaming them for our problems, which is essentially what you have done in your article, is certainly not the way forward.
Andrew Khoo Chin Hock
Kuala Lumpur
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Sunday May 17, 2009
A disease not to be sneezed at
ON THE BEAT
By WONG CHUN WAI
Education and prevention are the only means to deal with the latest deadly strain of flu and other infectious diseases that the Health Ministry is grappling with.
I FLEW into Shenzen yesterday, just as the second Malaysian case of A (H1N1) flu was confirmed in Penang. It was the first flight from Malaysia into Shenzen.
We arrived at Shenzen on AK80 at 10.40am but were not allowed to leave the aircraft. Three health officers wearing facial masks came aboard 30 minutes later.
They videotaped every one of the more than 100 passengers, some of whom were already wearing masks, and used an instrument to take our temperatures.
We were all cleared at about 11.25am, allowed to get off the plane and board a bus to the airport building. But when we got there, we were not allowed to leave the bus.
Ten officials made us queue up in three rows for another round of checks before we got to the immigration counters where masked officers were overheard talking about Malaysian cases. All in all, it took us two hours to come out of the airport.
For Malaysians, the H1N1 has finally hit home. But with global travel now becoming easier, faster and cheaper, it was only a matter of time.
While there is bound to be a certain degree of anxiety over the flu, now that we have our own cases – both students who had just returned from the US recently – it is unlikely to stop us from travelling overseas.
We are in an era of mass human migration and transportation, says a scientist. Never in history have diseases spread geographically with such speed.
Travel has become a necessity and the world is not going to come to standstill because of this flu.
Travellers undeterred
In any case, 13,000 died from common cold worldwide in 2007. That’s many, many more than the number of H1N1 fatalities.
Extensive coverage of the H1N1 outbreak might have dampened the mood and added to the woes of airline operators, but it has helped create greater awareness and knowledge than fear.
Education and prevention are vital to cope with this strain of flu, which has hit 37 nations.
Two other students who were on the same flight as the two confirmed H1N1 patients are currently under observation.
They were among the passengers who boarded the same flight from Newark, New Jersey, who had been advised to undergo medical checks. It is good that no one is taking any chances.
In addition to dealing with H1N1, our Health Ministry has also been put under more stress with the outbreak of leptospirosis, a bacterial disease, at the Juru detention camp for immigrants in Penang.
Following the death of a Myanmar detainee, 26 others have been admitted into two hospitals for treatment. They have been suspected of consuming water contaminated with the urine of an animal. There is reason to be concerned because it is a rare disease.
The lack of hygienic conditions in the over-crowded camp could be a possible cause for the outbreak, but it is worrying that Malaysia is facing the return of diseases eliminated decades ago.
Migrant workers are bringing in infectious diseases despite the medical checks supposedly carried out on them before they enter the country, never mind the illegal immigrants who would have no medical records for sure.
Foreign exposure
It would not be wrong to say that Malaysia is facing the emergence and re-emergence of diseases because of these foreigners.
For example, tuberculosis and leprosy have been detected among immigrants, especially in Sabah, although we successfully wiped out these diseases long ago.
Health authorities have no other choice but to incorporate prevention programmes resulting in additional financial and manpower strains.
It has been reported that in 2004, 2.8% of the nearly one million foreign workers examined nationwide were found to be unfit.
Half were found to be suffering from hepatitis, 12.3% from tuberculosis, 8.4% from sexually transmitted diseases and 1.3% from HIV.
In 2000, it was reported that the increase in the number of TB patients in Malaysia was due to an increase in the number of HIV/AIDS patients and immigrants, according to a paper presented at the Third National Conference On Infection and Infection Control.
I wonder what the latest figures will show and I certainly hope there is improvement.
Malaysians have never heard of Chikungunya, a mosquito-borne virus, until recently. The last outbreak of this disease, endemic among migrant workers, was seven years ago but it has made a comeback.
There is always a price for everything and as the world becomes smaller, a sneeze can always lead on to something bigger.
