National Service - Sick of it.

With school going children, many of us are indeed troubled by the deaths occuring in National Service camps every year. While we have been bringing up the issue, our DPM seems more hell bent to justify the programme that it should continue. HERE.

What I find depressing is the DPM seems to echo the excuses of the camp administrators in pin pointing the root cause of the deaths as to negligence on health by the attendees while not addressing the issues of accidents arising from it.

"Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak said the number of deaths was a small percentage compared to the 339,186 trainees who had benefited from the programme up to now.

He also said that 11 of the trainees had died during training and five during their holiday break. Of the 11 deaths, seven were caused by ailments and four were due to accidents, he added."

How could he just brush aside the number of death as small? We have spent almost 20 years to bring our kids up to that age. Imagine the amount of money and time spent nurturing them! Only to die in vain due to some incompetent camp administrator! I guess its easy for him to say so as his own kids are not subjected to such slack attention at the camps.

On top of that, he is trying even harder to "ADD VALUE" to his cronies when he suggested that medical check-ups to be made mandatory! So what now? We have to pay to ensure our kids health before we sent them for NS? More money to be made? How in the world can he equate deaths in our NS camps to Singapore's? Can he ensure that all the camp's personnel's credentials to be put up for scrutiny? Can he allow parents to visit their kids every now and then? Can he ensure that the kids will be sent to the nearest camp where their home is? After all its NS we are talking about not a concentration camp for convicts!

I will now dedicate my blog to fighting for the abolition of NS and will join the desired groups elsewhere to seek justice for the deaths in NS. I can imagine the agony of a parent to see their kids die in vain like drowning in toilet, die of stomach upset etc. When they cannot even ensure basic safety and health standards, I wonder what right have they got to make it mandatory for our kids to go to NS!