While the trip up Katibas river might have been a great experience, I've come to realised other matters as well. Matters such as poverty which was clear to see in every village that i visited. Being a state so blessed with natural resources one would expect that standard of living would have been better.

While the leaders go around in their helicopters and Mercedes Benz, the people in the long house live a life of scarcity. Most of the young children are severely underweight because their parents can’t afford to buy milk powder and so they give them condense milk instead. The normal diet consists of rice and wild vegetables. They only get meat once or twice a week because it is too expensive. I think even prisoners in this country get better nutrition in their diet.

It is now 2010. And in 10 years time it will be 2020 when we supposedly become a developed country. But yet these people live their life without electricity or road to connect them to the nearest town, infrastructures which are vital in uplifting the standard of living of these people. The difficult terrain and geography cannot be used as an excuse for not building roads or power stations. Come on, if the government has what it takes to built the freaking Bakun Dam which is the size of Singapore, I’m sure the same government has what it takes to cut through a few hills to built a road. It’s all about political will. Wait, maybe political will is not the right reason. It is about greed. Yeah thats it. If the project won’t benefit some big shot politician, then I guess it is pointless to proceed with it. Who cares about a bunch of illiterate poor river side dwellers.

These people eke out a hand to mouth existence. I’ve met some patients who are hypertensive and diabetics for more than 10 years but never had their medication adjusted or had their renal function tested and there are patients I’ve met who have not seen a doctor in their entire adult life just because they could not afford the RM20 boat fare (one way) to Song. While RM20 might be considered spare change for most of us, the amount is a big big deal for them. It is hard for them to see the logic in spending such an amount just to see a doctor when the money can be used to buy food for the family.

And even if the patient is severely ill, they still wouldn’t want to send them down to Song/Kapit/Sibu. The reason? If they die, the relatives won’t have enough money to bring the body back to the village for burial. So they rather die than become a financial burden to their next of kins.

Most of the people here are into self cultivation and do not have a fixed income. They earned extra money by hunting for deer, wild boar or frog meat. And with logging concession being given out like its Christmas everyday to certain groups/individual, soon there won’t be anything left to hunt.

It is appalling; a travesty to human kind if people are not able to receive the best possible health care just because they do not have the financial means to do so. It is the fundamental duty of the government to protect the interest of the people. Public office is not for cultivating personal wealth but to serve the needs of the people. But i am just a fool to have such idealistic thinking. The world doesn’t work with ideals. Money and power makes the world goes round.

The greatest realisation that I’ve come to realised is that, as doctors we can only do so much. We are just treating the symptoms of poverty but are incapable in curing the root cause of poverty. We just treat the symptoms and then hope that better things will happen in the future. The changes I can accomplish as a doctor are limited. What is needed is a bigger platform if you want to exert a bigger difference in the lives of those in need. And that platform ironically is politics itself.