This incident happened about two weeks ago.

My father met with an accident. Luckily he was not injured but he complained that the right side of his body was hurting and he had a few small cuts as the car door was badly damaged by the impact.

Since he was a hypertension patient we took him straight to hospital.

We arrived at the hospital approximately 8.45pm. There were around 60 or more people waiting to be attended by the doctor.

My sister approached one of the male nurses and explained that our father needed to be attended to as eventhough he seemed okay he could be in shock after the motor accident. But unfortunately the male nurse told us to queue up with the others.

We did as we were told but by ten we were still waiting and our dad was developing headaches. He as getting restless and wanted to go back home.

We approached a few more times but still we were not attended to.

Other than my father, there were also many others still waiting to be seen by doctors, including an amah who had suffered a big cut and was crying in pain.

All the doctors were busy attending to the serious cases while there were none in the rooms to attend to those who had not yet shown danger signals.

What I can't understand is this goes on mostly everyday in the Accident and Emergency Unit, yet there are no improvements.

Why can't the authorities put more doctors on call as well as let trained nurses attend to real action like this.

We surely have a few more doctors. So why don't we let them help out and smoothen out the disasters faced everyday at the A&E Dept?

Another thing I still see is that our local nurses need lessons in courtesy.

Anyway finally around 10.30 pm a doctor saw my father.

By that time about 15 patients had become so sick and tired of waiting that they had left preferring to seek private medical care.

To be frank, things could go smoothly but due to an apparent lack of staff, especially doctors, and a well organised system, everyone concerned was suffering.

The Accident and Emergency Unit seems always chaotic and the authorities should come and check how they could improve this department.

They could even try to take a hint from TV drama "ER" or Medical Center.

See, no matter how busy medical professionals are; the doctors at emergency unit must attend to everyone urgently.

Courtesy too is very important.

So I hope MoH would soon take some serious action and make use of all the medical professionals available to provide us with better Emergency care.

- Concerned Local, KB

I am writing from England and have just discovered your on-line site.

I was excited to find the Borneo Bulletin was still going strong.

I lived in Brunei (out at Muara) 25 years ago. My daughter was born in the Rumah Sakit in Bandar, and is the proud bearer of a Brunei birth certificate.

At the moment we are both considering taking up teaching (either voluntary or paid) in Bandar Seri Begawan.

Luckily I learnt and spoke Malay and although it's a bit rusty, most of it is still with me!

My house is called 'Rumah Saya' and we are lucky enough to have one Malay restaurant where I can practise my Malay.

- Mary Wilson

May I wish a Happy 53rd Birthday to the Information Department of the Prime Minister Office.

One of my fond childhood memories was watching your Department's ' Wayang Padang ' in the 1950's. I wish I can go back to that era again!

- Loyal Reader, KB

I read the recent article about our swimmers returning with stunning results at the recent 38th Sabah Age Group.

As a sports enthusiast and a citizen of Brunei, I am extremely proud of their achievement.

On the other hand, I'm not happy about the fact that we were represented by a small group of swimmers from the national swimming scheme, that is to say swimmers not under the scheme were ineligible.

According to that report, the swimmers who went for the Sabah Age Group will be selected for the upcoming Arafura Games.

Don't you think that you are depriving a majority of the opportunity to do the country proud?

One has to consider that the scheme training time may be unsuitable for most children.

Whether we train with the scheme or not, we are all equally devoted to swimming.

And it is really unfair that our children are not given a chance.

Instead of using other country's meets, why can't we have our own national meet to select top swimmers to represent the country in overseas meets?

In my opinion, this will solve all the problems.

Other countries are doing it, why shouldn't we?

As I recall, the last national age group swimming championship was held in 2003 and the country managed to unearth a few talents. You need a broader base of swimmers.

If selection only within the scheme swimmers is applied, how can one discover more swimmers of high calibre?

Based on this present method, how will we ever catch up with other swimming nations?

Therefore, I appeal to the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports and the Brunei Amateur Swimming Association to give every Bruneian a fair chance to represent their country.

I insist that you organise a Brunei National Age Group Swimming Meet as soon as possible to select the best swimmers for the upcoming Arafura Games in a fair manner, and not based on their performance in the Sabah Age Group or in time trials.

It is ridiculous to use another country's competition for selection.

I urge you to play fair and give every citizen a chance to prove their worth so that we can be represented by the best.

- Concerned Parent

Referring to the Opinion BB on April 6th 2005, I fully agree with Worried Motorist regarding the U-turn at Seria Bypass near LNG.

My view is that stretch should be adequately lighted and that there should be a large luminous U-turn sign at the point just before the turn.

There is also one other U-turn near the Sungai Bera Industrial Area, which should have the same attention.

I believe the two stretches are hazardous especially during night driving. Situation would worsen if it was raining and in the glare of on-coming headlights, etc.

- ddselen, Lumut

Night teachers still waiting for payments

Perhaps I may not the first person to write about night classes.

Well the problem is, ever since I started working last year our payments have been late and teachers who work at night classes are always kept waiting a long time for their payments (or teaching allowances).

Obviously, teachers work to earn money. Some of us work at different venues for night classes (Dato' Marsal and old UBD building) each week sacrificing our time to earn some extra dollars to pay for children's tuition and so on.

It was the same thing this year.

We have been informed that there are different types of payment systems used in different months.

I know that one of the problems of late payments is due to a lack of work force in charge of both clerical and financial sections as they are the people who check the validity of every teacher's claim.

To my knowledge there are only a few clerks available for this task and I know how efficient and hardworki ng they are because I have made a couple of visits while taking my claims to the office.

Second point would be that each year students register for January session (1st intake) and March session (2nd intake).

Some students are sitting for June examinations and some are taking November examinations and some take both.

These students are randomly mixed regardless of which intake they are from and which exams they are sitting for.

The problem is that, teachers will have a problem with students who are taking June exams, as teachers cannot squeeze all topics to be taught in less than 5 months for 1st intake and less than 3 months for 2nd intake.

Even if teachers manage to cover all topics, I bet it is going to be a fast, less practised and even worse, giving little confidence to students especially those who are not upto standard.

The outcome is (based from the last 2 years results) students will be unable to gain good grades resulting in slim chances for them to apply for institutions or jobs.

So my suggestion is to allocate a couple of clerks who will help reduce the office workload and create job opportunities.

I also would like to suggest referring to financial and computer experts lending ideas to create a better payment system, so that the old ones are updated, and to allocate a different group of students taking June exams and to make them start their classes early (in 1st intake session) so that the teachers and students would have 100% focus.

May be my suggestions are not good enough but I am sure that the authorities concerned would have better ideas to improve their service.

Our imperfections can be resolved by helping each other to contribute ideas and suggestions.

I hope the authorities concerned would look into my humble suggestions.

- Workaholic Dad

I just want to share an experience with those who often use door-to-door delivery service of a forwarding company from overseas to Brunei.

I often use this particular local agent of a big forwarding company in Singapore.

Those who have been using this agent would realise that this local agent has never given or shown us the original or even a copy of custom duty receipts.

They would simply state the amount of custom duty that a customer has to pay in their company's receipts.

I have once been charged unreasonable amounts of custom duty compared to the total cost of items that I brought in. I therefore insisted to see the original custom duty receipt.

After strong resistance and lots of excuses given by the agent's representative, we managed to get the receipt and found out that there were extra items which did not belong to us listed in the receipt.

I let it go that time until they did it again to my sister's cargo.

So I think it's best that I share this experience so that people will stop getting cheated by such irresponsible business people.

- Irked Customer, BSB