I know I’m going to sound like a pasam malum auntie but I have to rant the following to raise awareness among my fellow islanders (how noble, ha).
About a month ago, I went to a clinic at West Coast area- Healthway Medical @ Clementi.
Knowing what I needed, I asked the GP for the medicine, which must come with doctor’s prescription, straightaway.
After ‘chatting’ for a mere 5 minutes (or even less), I left the consultation room.
Was charged $48 for the medicine and short/long (you be the judge, is 5 minutes a long or short consultation?) consultation.
Just this afternoon, I went to another GP for the same medicine but since the clinic does not have stock for it, the GP gave me a doctor’s prescription to ask me to get it from any pharmacy.
The cost? $5.50 for the same medicine, same dosage and same brand. Both are exactly the same; right down to their last nanoparticle.
Even if I include the consultation fee for the latter, the total will be $20 + $5.50= $25.50?
It’s kind of shocking how much the first clinic had marked up the price of the medicine.
This brings me to another incident. I went to a hawker stall and ordered something.
The first time they charged me $3.50, the second time was $3.80. Why the difference if I’d ordered the same thing?
It’s not about the 30cents but the ethics and honesty of the hawkers or even mega merchants.
I swore I will never go back to the stall, and I never did.
You lost a customer forever for that 30cents.
(side track a little. A finger food stall staff once allowed someone to cut my queue. And I never returned there to buy their food. Cheat me once, shame on you. Cheat me twice, shame on me. I never allow the latter to happen.)
I’m aware that there’s a Singapore agency which checks the prices of the goods (daily necessities) charged by different merchants.
Say, a product X is sold at $50 at Merchant A while the same thing is sold at $42 at Merchant B and so on at other merchants. So, they will inform the consumers that product X will cost them $42-$50 and so on. Very informative. So you know who are the unscrupulous merchants who mark up their prices to sky high; I hope they do get a warning or get fined.
For instance, a bottle of 1.5L Ice Mountain mineral water will cost me $1 from Cold Storage but $2.40 at 7-11.
I believe, this is to protect the consumers. So why not extend this service to other sectors?
It’s true that Singapore hospitals have to state the costs for certain (or all) surgical procedures on their websites so that consumers can pick the hospital according to their budget.
However, more can be done.
_
After all, this is a fine country.
Now, I rest my case.
