Poor little rich man Najib’s medical melodramas

 

Najib Abdul Razak was the great Bugis warrior, full of fire during the Johor and Malacca election campaigns. Yet after being jailed, he portrays an image of someone on the brink of collapse.

So is this a great Bollywood performance? A brazen attempt to gain sympathy? To ramp up public pressure for a royal pardon? To get out of jail through overseas treatment? Or is he really ill?

One does not wish to be unkind. But the problem with Bossku is that he has been so shameless (malu apa) in his lies – “I didn’t know about the millions going into my account” – that people wonder if he is now the boy just crying wolf.

Is he faking it? Just to get out of prison and into a comfy hospital bed where relatives can bring him delicious foods? After all, as his daughter Nooryana Najwa revealed on Aug 30, Najib is a “big foodie” and loves his Starbucks caramel macchiato.

This led to artist Fahmi Reza creating a satirical graphic that Kajang prison would soon have an in-house branch of the famous coffee chain!

Internet users also joked that Najib wanted to get out to watch the Arsenal vs Manchester United game on Sept 4. Yet, he was fit enough to attend his own 1MDB trial in court. So was he really sick? Or just “sick of prison”?

Malaysians tend to be superstitious and some believe Najib’s infamous “sumpah laknat” on Aug 22 came back to haunt him. This is basically an oath that declares, “I am telling the truth, or may I be damned by God.”

Of course, if he is genuinely unwell, then the former prime minister should be given proper medical attention, like any other prisoner.

Let’s not be cruel to those who are down, even if they are the most notorious robbers the country has known. Indeed, we need Najib to be healthy enough to be held accountable in court for many more corruption charges.

VIP treatment?

But does he deserve VIP treatment? In his second hospital visit after being jailed, Najib was seen by specialists at Hospital Kuala Lumpur (HKL).

In contrast, for us normal citizens, we have to wait for hours at the government outpatient clinic before we even get referred to see any specialists.

Similarly, pakciks and makciks (uncles and aunties) have to wait for ages to get a CT scan done. Even those with broken bones have to sometimes wait days for their operations and they have to endure the wait with painkillers.

Despite such red carpet service for Najib, his daughter Nooryana complained he was discharged while still ill. She also implied he was not being treated in a “humanitarian” manner.

Nooryana Najwa Najib

Meanwhile, his lawyer Mohamed Shafee Abdullah created an expectation that Najib would be sent to the plush semi-private National Heart Institute (IJN) for treatment.

That seemed like an indirect insult to the specialists at HKL, as if they could not handle a simple case of hypertension and stomach ulcers.

Or was Najib longing for more comfortable lodgings at IJN? Like someone with an overinflated sense of entitlement?

Najib was deemed healthy enough to be sent back to jail by those specialists. But it didn’t help that Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob intervened, calling for Najib to get the “best treatment needed”.

I’m sorry dear PM, are you saying the specialists who saw Najib were not already giving “the best treatment”? That they didn’t really know what they were doing?

Or are you just trying to do some damage control after you were attacked by Umno leaders for “allowing” Bossku to be jailed?

Kudos to Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin for sticking to the rules. No, prisoners are not entitled to private hospitals like IJN, they have to be treated at government hospitals just like other inmates.

Stress? Cannot sleep?

Nooryana complained her father’s blood pressure shot up after his medicine “changed”. Khairy clarified, that no, he’s getting the same medicine, just that it’s a generic version.

This is like saying that someone is given Uphamol or Actimax instead of Panadol. All three brands contain the same key ingredient - paracetamol.

But no, generic drugs from the public health system are not good enough for Bossku, insisted his fussy lawyer Shafee.

Lawyer Mohamed Shafee Abdullah

Najib is not suffering from a rare disease that requires overseas treatment. Hypertension is a very common problem, in fact, 30 percent of Malaysians suffer from this due to our unhealthy diets and lifestyles.

Friends tell me their blood pressure shoots up to dangerously high levels when they are stressed, when they don’t get enough sleep, or when they forget to take their pills.

Najib has been used to seven-star luxury and perhaps finds jail too mentally stressful. Or is he so upset after two royals cautioned that a pardon cannot be simply given out? So upset that he forgot to take his pills?

There have been various rumours that Bossku has been getting “extra privileges” in jail. But the Kajang prison authorities denied this, saying he has an ordinary cell with only a fan and cold showers.

Can we believe this? Or do we need a Najib-cam CCTV online channel so that the rakyat can monitor what he’s up to inside?

Poor little rich man Najib, maybe he’s unable to sleep without air conditioning set to 16 degrees Celcius. Has this caused his blood pressure to spike? That may account for the heat rash too.

Tough luck, dear sir. As another columnist commented, “If you can't do the time, don't do the crime”.

One wonders how others such as Anwar Ibrahim, Lim Kit Siang, and Mohamad Khir Toyo survived in prison. Maybe they can give Najib some tips?

As for his stomach ulcers, surely they must have been a long-term condition, not something that has popped up only now. So Najib, as a responsible adult, should very well know how to deal with them. Is he taking his regular medication?

In addition, Nooryana should advise her father to avoid those fancy Starbucks drinks because coffee is known to aggravate such stomach ulcers.

Political parasites

Even as a prisoner, Najib still insists on hogging the national limelight. Does he and Umno not realise that our nation has many other serious problems, mostly caused by the corrupt “cash is king” culture?

While the sick have to wait for ages in public hospitals, we lack the money to hire more doctors. Why? Because we are a rich country that has been made poor by political parasites – such as Najib.

“We are currently underfunded, understaffed, underpaid, overworked, overstretched, and with overcrowded patients,” Health Ministry director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah lamented in 2019.

Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin

Khairy also admitted there is “chronic under-investment” in the public healthcare system. The same system that Najib’s daughter and lawyer are complaining about now.

If the best way to improve public transport is to make it compulsory for ministers to take buses and LRT/MRT, then the best way to improve our public health system may be to ensure VIP prisoners also have to wait in line for hours – just as the ordinary public does.

So don’t be fooled by Najib’s antics. Stop the feudal mentality of pitying elites when they merajuk (throw tantrums) about not getting their usual luxury service.

It’s time we all wake up and realise what corrupt leaders have done to all of us by sucking the system dry. This is the real lesson of Najib’s medical melodramas. - Mkini

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ANDREW SIA is a veteran journalist who likes teh tarik khau kurang manis. You are welcome to give him ideas to brew at tehtarik@gmail.com.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.