Communication problems

The other day one of my staff had some queries about the accounting work she was doing for a business client…

Staff: “Tahun ni tak payah masuk kut ren ke? Tahun lepas ada.”
Me: “Ha? Tak payah masuk apa?” *confused*
Staff: “Kut ren.”
Me: “HAA??! Apa benda?” *even more confused*
Staff: “Kut ren.”
Me: “Apa benda engko cakap ni. Tengok jap file tu!” *couldn't bear it any longer*

Took the file, looked at the P&L, and finally I figured it out, “Ohh, QUIT RENT!!”

Not only her English pronunciation was bad, she also tends to swallow her words; making it even more difficult to understand when she speaks, especially in English. Which is why I usually don’t dare give her answers when she consults me on the phone as I can’t be too sure what she really is talking about unless and until I see for myself the documents she’s referring to. Otherwise there tend to be miscommunication, she’d end up doing things wrongly and at the end of it she’d just say that I was the one who told her so… (Yeah, sure!)

Miscommunication can also occur when dealing with my PLWHA clients. A few weeks ago Yah needed to come to Ipoh GH to see the doctor and to get her supply of medication. However on the day of her appointment, the bus drivers at the small town where she stays went on strike and she couldn’t get a bus to come to Ipoh. So she called me to say that she had to take a taxi “sampai bus station” and asked if I could fetch her at the bus station as she was already late for her appointment. I just said OK as she must not miss her medication. She didn’t specify which bus station she meant, and not expecting her to ask me to wait for her at town B (usually she’d have to take 2 buses to come to Ipoh from her place), I went to wait for her at the Ipoh bus station. It didn’t occur to me then that if she had taken a taxi to Ipoh, might as well the taxi driver send her direct to the hospital. So there we were, the 2 dimwits - I was waiting in Ipoh while Yah was waiting in town B.

After a while she called me (I couldn’t call her as she didn’t have a hand phone) and then only we found out that we were actually miles apart! Finally she took the express bus from town B to Ipoh (the bus drivers in town B were not on strike); she didn’t have much money left after having to pay for the taxi earlier. She made it just in time before HIV clinic closed.

Yah had earlier misunderstood SN’s instructions on how to take her HIV medication. SN had actually given clear instructions… she even drew a table on how and when to take the medication – just to make sure Yah understood. Yah looked so confident after SN’s explanation. But 2 weeks later SN found out that Yah got it all wrong! I can understand the stress SN has to go through trying to explain things to patients. At the same time I also understand that it may not be easy for the uneducated poor people to comprehend whatever that was explained to them.

It gets even harder when there is no communication at all. Like Zainab for example who couldn’t come for her appointment because she was on morning shift at her workplace and she couldn’t afford to take leave. Well, I can understand that she can’t afford to apply for unpaid leave, but the least she could have done was to call SN and inform her about it so SN could fix another appointment.

And then there was Rashid… the wife once called me asking for help to get her bed-ridden husband to be warded at the hospital. I did help her out by getting all the referral letters etc but apparently after her husband was admitted, she never visited. The nurses at the ward needed a family member to sign some consent forms but nobody visited Rashid. The wife didn’t leave her phone number either so the nurses couldn’t communicate with her at all. Gosh, I wonder what’s in the wife’s mind right now. Is she abandoning the husband for good or what?

We Buddies too sometimes have problems communicating with our PLWHA clients. Some of these clients tend to change their mobile phone numbers without informing their assigned buddies or even SN at the HIV clinic. After some time if we are still not able to contact any of our clients, we’d usually reclassify them as “inactive” clients. We’ve got quite a number of those by now… especially the guys who needed us earlier to help them apply for their EPF withdrawal. After they got their EPF drawings, they went missing in action. It's like… “Hey, I’ve got money now so I don’t need you any more.” Their money usually don’t last that long… one of the PLWHAs under this category was later found to be homeless and sleeping under one of the staircases at the hospital. Now we don’t even know where he has gone to as he is no longer found under the staircases and he has also missed his hospital appointments.

Then there are those who don't have telephones - whether fixed land line or mobile. For these category of clients, we have no choice but to wait for them to call us when they need us. Oh yes, we do try to visit from time to time, but sometimes because we can't call them first to tell we're coming, they're not home when we visit.

As far as possible, I always make it a point to call or visit my clients at least once every 2 or 3 months for the non-problematic clients and more often for the problematic ones of course. Once I lose touch with them, it won’t be easy to get hold of them again…