Poop Scoop

By and large, I try to keep my bodily functions out of the Daily Paradox. But I cannot allow the following incident to go unremarked. There are many older people like me with somewhat compromised mobility. A visit out of the home is demanding on the time and patience of others as well as on the subject of the walkabout.

My doctor decided that a sample of my output should be tested as part of a diagnostic process. I am truly grateful and thankful for this kind attention to my ageing body. I don’t deserve it, certainly not as much as the millions who die every day without anything approaching such conscientious and caring devotion. I give thanks that I am so well looked after, believe me.

So it came as something of a shock to be told by Singapore’s Mount Elizabeth Hospital Pharmacy that they would neither supply nor sell a sterile container unless I would (1) attend in person to (2) collect the receptacle, (3) return home, (4) poop to order, (5) take the offering back to the Pharmacy or clinic (6) put the analysis of the resulting sample through their own laboratory and (7) await the doctor’s call to tell me the result of the analysis.

All other hospitals and clinics we approached in Singapore with a similar request reacted in the same way.

Only one supplier welcomed the opportunity to do business about my business. Amazon to the rescue! They didn’t give a (well, ‘damn’) about the subsequent destination of my efforts.

Telling the story to one of my overseas relatives who knows Singapore well, he replied that he ‘didn’t believe it’. Nor, I assured him, do I.

An ageing society is not best equipped to chase sterility around the island of Singapore. Perhaps the medical fraternity – so good at almost everything they do – could add sterile sample dishes to their rack of achievements?

We do not want another Poop Scoop,  do we?

Good morning

John Bittleston

john.bittleston@terrificmentors.com

Most comments from readers on this subject will be icily ignored, I dare say.