17 January 2008

Gimme More Money!

Money is the key to solving everyone's problem nowadays, isn't it?

Our societies have always been known to throw their problems to the side and look for the easy way out; whether it's covering up the facts to not have to face the truth, or ignoring something and hoping it will go away, we've never wanted to really deal with things.

Bahrain is going through a number of issues; we have safety issues, inflation issues, political problems, etc, but instead of tackling these problems head on, we decide to throw money at them and hope they dissapear. Is this the trend and way of things to come? An example:

SMC staff want 'risk' allowance

OFFICIALS are demanding at least BD500 a month danger money for doctors and nurses, in the face of almost daily violence or abuse at Salmaniya Medical Complex. The across-the-board payment - which would be more than some staff earn - is being proposed to the Health Ministry by accident and emergency department chairman Dr Jassim Al Mehza.

The demand follows a string of incidents, including two which happened yesterday and on Tuesday. In the first incident, a Bahraini man grabbed a doctor and dragged him over to his wife, demanding that he treat her immediately. The man was arrested and was yesterday still in custody. In the second incident, a Bahraini government worker demanded a two-day sick note, so he would be off until after the Ahsoora break and threatened the doctor when he refused. He has been cautioned by police and released, said the sources.

So lets get this straight; instead of providing more strict guidelines for patients visiting doctors, or ensuring better security (whether this includes security guards, cameras or anything else), they consider throwing some money at the situation and hope it would go away. Very clever. 500 dinars a month, multiplied by the number of staff to recieve it is not a small amount, and considering that it will be paid month after month? And most of these employees will never get attacked in their life anyway?

How about paying risk allowance to those labourers you have working hours and hours in the burning summer sun or in the freezing cold, working dangerous jobs? Oh but wait, that's another story.

But hey, we've always had a history of throwing money at things and hoping they go away. Remember when prices started creeping up and the government decided, not to worry brave citizens, we shall shower you with a 200 dinar bonus. The citizens chanted, all hail the government, and waited days, which turned to weeks, which turned to months, and after a little over a year or so the bonus was given, and was spent within a few days?

How does that solve anything, really. A few days ago, our parliment was given the task of spending 40 million dinars on battling inflation. Again, how do you solve a situation by throwing money at it? Combating inflation is done by bringing experts to discuss the situation, to place structured policies and safeguards, managing the overall economical infrastructure of the economy, analyzing how much needs to be spent and where, and not by giving a randon lump sum of money to a bunch of baboons who have no idea how the whole inflation thing works.

Ah, but that's just life as it is here la? We believe we can solve everything by throwing money at it; but life is getting more complex, solving the situation temporarily until the money runs out. We need longer-term solutions, we need planning, we need future outlooks, and unless we work on these immediately, sooner or later we'll all run out of money, and end up stuck with just the problems.

13 comments:

Eyad said...

Good post bro, what we need is to put the right guy in the right place, think of it in a broader way, the right guy in education, the right guy in police forces, the right guy in the hospital, and so forth, that is how you create a healthy society.

the problem here is not only with the patients, the doctors have problems too and that effects their performance and tolerance, some other doctors see them self as a scaled down version of god and demand to be treated that way, that doesn't exclude the patients as well, some of them are just hopeless like the guy is case 2.

we need to work on the bigger picture in this country and for once look 50 years a head, there are no magical spells that can cure a very ill society in 3 weeks, not even three years, but on the long run major improvement can be achieved.

Anonymous said...

true some people at high places play god, but the average employee here who forms the front line in facing the mobs suffers terribly, i have outsiders coming at my office and wanting me to do things their way (not an option)with all disregard to the companies policy and routine work. but the mob out here is pretty khaput in the head, i see people grumble anh whine about every little thing!

i might as well be stationed in iraq, such is the discomfort i endure so frequently.

Coolred38 said...

"might as well be stationed in iraq, such is the discomfort i endure so frequently."....I can only surmise by this rediculous statement that you are indeed a bahraini...comparing your "discomfort" in the work place to the very real trajedy affecting every single soul that lives within the Iraqi borders is just laughable...but then again many of the solutions to Bahrains problems that have been promoted have been real gut busters. If I hear one more Bahraini citizen moan that the govt should give them something....it aint gonna happen people...you have to work for what you want...nothing is for free. Soon as you all understand that phrase the sooner you'll get over this "the govt owes us something" mentality and get on with the art of living. Just my personal thoughts on this.

SoulSearch said...

For a country with so much resources, people in Bahrain deserve an awful lot more. Can you imagine how it would be to live on a joint income of 300BD these days? Its just not possible, but Bahrainis are living that way, I agree that a mere BD 200 Bonus did nothing to releive the stress in anyway whatsoever, but the government needs to give real pay rises (e.g. UAE, Qatar) and not a 15% hike for one sector and not the other!
Peace,
SoulSearch

Eyad said...

SS, what are you talking about, where is that coming from?

no we don't need a band aid solution to our problems, I don't want a Heba from the government, I want a better place to live in, I want real monitoring, better health care, better education, better housing, I need to live in a place that I can proudly call home, what was done in Qatar is not right, its what we call in Arabic thi7k 3ala il thgoon, they are lowering the value of their currency on purpose to make it appeal to foreign investors and to HIDE the inflation they are throwing money on a Blind population, but what about freedom of speech? what about everything else? is that what you want for your children?

Money thrown at you by the government will never be compensation enough for the lack of other things, its just a drug, and one that doesn't last.

di.di said...

woo, those ppl really act like a mafia...

Islander said...

damn you, wat have u done with ur blog? i cant access it from work anymore!!! undo that now!!

Anonymous said...

coolred38, it was just an exagerated example about my being stationed in iraq, just letting some steam off

Dr. Shale bin Agnon said...

Ammaro, video-static.blah.blah is crashing out on firefox in ubuntu. Not cool. The only reason I can see your website and comment is that I pressed the stop button on the browser early on.

Sunshine may be having the same problem?

Ammaro said...

sunshine/shale; perhaps some code needs to be moved around; i'll look into it. sunshine, what browser do you have at work?

do0da said...

id avoid hospitals if i were u :P i think theyr really lookin forward to that bonus :P

SwaRwaR said...

luv the new layout :)

Anonymous said...

Isn't throwing money at a problem the quickest and easiest way to solve it?

Isn't that what arabs are good at?