I felt disturbed when I read this morning’s papers about how a young man in the prime of his life, fell into a coma while on a storeman duty in camp. MINDEF stopped paying for his hospitalization fees since a year ago, citing the reason that his was not a service injury since there was uncertainty over whether he was actually “performing” his duty at the time of the incident. The thing is, this serviceman was last seen a few minutes before he was found unconcious, resting in his bunk.

My personal interpretation of this is that,  if nobody can prove that his injuries were not service-related, he should be given the benefit of doubt and receive due compensation from MINDEF since he was supposed to be on duty at the time. Assuming nobody knew better, it’s plausible to argue that he could have been resting in his bunk because he felt unwell while performing duty and then somehow he did not get better and collapsed. It’s also plausible to argue that he could have complained about being unwell to somebody else but it was not acknowledged or disclosed. Whatever the case, in situations where the cirumstances are unclear, I think benefit of doubt should be given to injured servicemen.

What is disturbing here is not just the fact that MINDEF is denying responsibility for the well-being of a serviceman who suffered injuries in MINDEF’s premises, while on duty for the country. I would like to point out the existence of double standards in dealing with such matters.

I am doing this to raise awareness of the existence of double standards in MINDEF’s treatment of servicemen injuries, in the hope that this will help servicemen in similar situations who feel that they should be receiving fair compensation. This is a matter of public concern, since all Singaporan males have to serve NS. I don’t think there is any classified information here, and I am not providing any information that will lead to identification of the specific unit and persons involved.

Several years ago when I was serving NS in a reservist unit, we had a case of an NSman (reservist) who collapsed while having breakfast at a coffeeshop near his home in his army fatigues, before he was supposed to report to camp for reservice. He subsequently fell into a coma and, to my knowledge, several months later he was still comatose at home. Of course, under that circumstance it was quite obvious that since he was not in camp at the time, and he was obviously not doing anything related to national service which led to his collapse, it can be argued easily that it was not a service-related injury.

However, under lobbying and appeals by senior officers of the unit, MINDEF relented and, while I do not know the specific details of the compensation, my understanding is that he was indeed provided with some hospitalization benefits, which I personally think is fair, since it cannot be determined whether he collapsed as a result of stress of having to go back for reservice (which I argue is service-related since in that context he would not have collapsed otherwise) or other reasons. I have to stress that I do not know the details of the hospitalization benefits accorded to him, but the main issue is – why should MINDEF deny such an outright case of compensation for a serviceman who was in camp at the time of collapse when they provided some form of hospitalization financial aid for a NSman who was not even on his way to camp yet?

This case has serious implications for the sons of Singapore who give up a significant amount of time and effort to protect the country. When Singapore needs us to fight for the country, we are asked to give up our lives. When a serviceman gives his life while supposedly on duty, he has to take MINDEF to court to fight for the compensation he deserves. Should the case be thrown out against the serviceman, it would set a precedence for future cases of service injury claims.

Bottomline: What kind of message is MINDEF sending to Singaporeans? That the government will not be liable if our sons die during NS for unknown reasons? This will only lead more able Singaporeans to emigrate to avoid their sons having to waste their lives doing NS.

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