Going to CGH?
Cannot Go Home!
But... Can Go Hell!!

Preface: This is a warning story written explicitly by myself and for myself to read and look back on, to warn myself in the future, and to avoid repeating this mistake that I have made. Albeit it is also for a secondary, very grim reason that I will explicitly state at the end.

4 Dec 2024, 5.15pm. I was at work, with just less than an hour left on the clock to go. Felt my throat was a bit itchy so reached for the Strepsils on my table. There, I committed my first major blunder of the day that would result in the cascading sequence of events that, at that point in time, God knows that I would not be aware of until it is too late.

I ripped the lozenge out of the packaging, ripped a hole in the blister pack, and without noticing the ripped blister pack now in my hand along with the lozenge, swallowed both without looking.

I instinctively spat out upon realizing what I had just swallowed, but the blister pack is already in my throat and would not easily come out. Mistake number 2: Instead of attempting to forcefully vomit it out while it is still recent, I somehow decided that swallowing it along with gulping it down with water would be a much better way to solve this problem. God knows how or why I came to that decision. Maybe it was because I was in my office cubicle and had my colleague just nearby, and I did not want to alert him as to what was happening?

Either way, throat and chest pain instantly developed upon that. Not going to lie, I don't think the seriousness of the situation has dawned upon me yet, because my immediate reaction was just to think, "Guess I'll die."

After spending 10 minutes frantically Googling, which lead to results such as:

• We report a case of an elderly patient who unintentionally ingested a blister pack, which led to esophageal perforation and ultimately his death.
• Hospital patient dies after swallowing pill in its packaging
• Man, 86, dies after swallowing a tablet still inside its blister pack

I was convinced of the urgency of this issue, and contemplated on where to seek medical treatment at. "The clinic would probably just redirect me to the hospital," I thought then. "I should just head directly to the hospital."

That was mistake number 3 of the day, and the biggest f---ing mistake throughout the entire day.

At 6.00pm, 45 minutes after the ingestion of the blister pack, I have entered the Accident and Emergency department of the hospital that I would not explicitly name in this webpage, though from the title of this webpage, should already be painfully obvious which hospital it is. Well, forgive me for clearly thinking that this is both an accident and a f---ing emergency, because on hindsight it is very obvious that I was the only one who had assumed so.

I was triaged and was told I need to wait two to three hours. Huh, maybe there's just that many people. Surely they would agree with me that this is an emergency and that the longer we wait, the worse my condition would deteriorate and spiral out of control, right? Right??

At 6.20pm, an hour after ingestion, my vomit reflex finally activated. I do understand from my panicked Googling that I should not force myself to vomit it out as it might potentially cause more damage to my throat, so I have been trying to suppress it all along. Alas, an hour later, and my biological intention to vomit has surpassed my logical intention to not do so. Out comes my lunch. No sight of the blister pack though.

At 8.30pm, two and a half hours after I have admitted into A&E, my patience has completely gone out of the window. Yes, I understand and accept that they will not call according to queue number. Yes, I understand and accept that they will prioritize cases that are more urgent than mine. No, I have not yet understand that they do not think of my case as urgent at all yet then. Yes, I am thoroughly angry and pissed at the waiting so far. Yes, I am also pissed at the person seated in the row behind me who is hitting my chair out of his own anger and frustration at the wait, though I can thoroughly understand and empathize with his anger and frustration because I am going through the exact same thing (though for God's sake, come on, don't hit my f---ing chair please). I can also sense the person sitting in the row in front of me having the exact same anger and frustration; he left his queue number on the seat beside him, which allowed me to see that he came in eight places after me. I feel like we are having the exact same anger and frustration at hearing a queue number being called and looking up at the display just to see that it's the queue number of someone who has came in twenty to thirty places after us.

But even with all that, the thing that frustrates me the most, oh dear God, was the queue number 3965. It is now 4.30pm the next day as I write this, a long twenty hours after the event in question, and I still remember his queue number with a vicious hatred burning inside me, despite knowing absolutely nothing about him other than 1. his queue number, 2. the fact that his queue number keeps getting called to different places, and 3. him not showing up at all to all the places he's called to. I even spent like ten minutes staring at the door to the X-ray room where he was called, just to take a look at the appearance of the f---er who came in twenty eight f---ing places after me, yet gets prioritized before me so much that he is called to a number of various different places whereas I am still waiting for the opportunity to get medical attention, and yet has the audacity to not f---ing show up.

8.40pm, finally get called. Thank God. Even the dude who was sitting behind me and hitting my chair seemed happy for me when my queue number get called, when he realized how low my queue number is and therefore how early I came and how long I waited. No joke, all the queue numbers being called at that point in time were 3960s and 3970s, and lo and behold, random 3937 pops up and I jump out of my seat immediately eager to have someone look at me considering the constant, lingering pain that I have been experiencing in my chest throughout the wait.

Doctor looked down my throat with a torchlight and couldn't see anything. No s---, it's been 3.5 hours since the swallowing and the constant chest pain. He asked me to take an X-ray and told me to go back to the same waiting room. Welp, back to the waiting. The dude behind me was like, "bro how?" and I was like, "lol x-ray"

More waiting ensues. In the meantime, queue number 3965 finally shows up to the X-ray room upon being called to the X-ray room for like the third or fourth time (his queue number pops up so frequently that I have pretty much memorized it, as you can clearly tell). And yup, as I was expecting and predicting, it's an 80~90+-year-old man being pushed around in a wheelchair, evidently with one foot in the grave and yet still desperately clinging onto dear life hoping to get a couple of years more out of his severely limited and diminishing lifespan. (Look, I know ageism is wrong and I am desperately trying to look for logical reasons for myself not to be, but everywhere I look, I see problems after problems caused by old people that just exacerbate my bias against them. Aging population, fossil fuel and climate change, the economy and widening income gap, etc., etc. Not to mention my personal interactions with old strangers just give me the impression that most of them are selfish and could not give an absolute f--- with regards to other people. Four years ago, at the height of the pandemic, I would do everything in my power to stop the spread and flatten the curve to prevent unnecessary deaths, but now that the pandemic has subsided, I really cannot help but think, despite not being religious at all, that what if God does exist, and He created COVID-19 in order to kill all the old people, but we still decided to give Him the middle finger with our scientific medical technology and facemask and social distancing? Anyway, sincerest apologies for the really long off-topic rant but just needed to get it off my chest (JUST LIKE HOW I NEED TO GET THIS GOD DAMN STILL-LINGERING CHEST PAIN OFF MY CHEST TOO))

Finally got called to an X-ray scan 30~45 minutes later (I stopped accurately keeping track of time spent on waiting around this point as I was glad to finally have a doctor take a look at me, though I do have a message sent to a colleague at 9.54pm stating I just finished taking the X-ray when he finally replied to my message at 6pm telling him I might not show up for work the next day). They couldn't see anything in the X-rays lol (though the next day I found out upon Googling that aluminium might not show up on X-ray? lol)

Got called back to the same doctor around 20~30 minutes(?) later, was told he couldn't see s--- in the X-ray, and directed me to ENT for an endoscopy. Great, more waiting.

10.40pm, finished seeing the ENT. I know this because I sent a message to a friend, "Huh nasal endoscopy bypasses gag reflex, interesting to know" And yes, the ENT looked inside my throat through my nose and couldn't find s---. Said he would send me to a CT scan. Great, more waiting.

After around an hour waiting outside the ENT room, the ENT doctor shows up and told me to go back to the first doctor to get him to send me to a CT scan. ummm not sure why the ENT doctor couldn't do send me to a CT scan himself, and not sure why the ENT doctor couldn't tell the first doctor himself, but sure, okay. Went to the consultation room of the first doctor (who left his door opened, thankfully, I am too socially awkward to just barge in like I own the place) and lingered outside since he was seeing another patient then, but he noticed me so I delivered the message from the ENT doctor. "Which part do I take a CT scan of?" I don't f---ing know, he didn't f---ing tell me. "Oh okay never mind I'll just read through the notes he left in the system." Then why f---ing ask me? lol

Half an hour later, noticed it was already midnight. Decided to flip a coin, and if heads, I would just f---ing go home, because I have been waiting for six hours and still no medical treatment given to me and my condition at this point. Flipped a coin, got heads. Unfortunately, the paranoid, worrisome part of my brain triumphed over the guess-i'll-die #yolo part of my brain, because I decided to go against the decision of Thee Coin and stayed to continue waiting. Mistake number 4.

Waited for another hour after that, which I know because at 12.30am I sent these messages to my friend, "F--- this 6.5 hours so far" "Should have just went home and wait for death" "Someone posted on forum saying they swallowed fish bone and given treatment and left in less than 2 hours" (though re-reading the forum thread now, seems like I mixed up two different posts, with someone having dengue fever leaving in 2 hours, and another person who swallowed fish bone been given medical attention in 15 minutes)

At this point in time I have been waiting for two hours for the CT scan, and waiting 6.5 hours in total, during which my phone was left with 20% battery and I stopped doing almost everything on it, and turned on ultra durable battery mode and airplane mode to conserve battery, because no music no life. I was also getting severely impatient and walking around looking for people I can bug to ask about my status. At 12.30am, I had finally decided to heed the decision of the coin flipped half an hour prior and go home, when finally a nurse called me to go for a CT scan. Got taken to the room where the CT scan is, and was told to continue waiting outside. Did see this poster outside the CT scan room which I thoroughly appreciate at that point.

Honestly speaking, I do not condone being abusive or even being rude at healthcare workers, because 1. why the f--- would you want to potentially give them - people whom you are supposed to trust your very lives to - a reason, whether consciously or otherwise, to give you less than the best possible treatment, and 2. why the f--- do you want to be an a--h---, just in general? Really. Just, don't be an a--h---.

(But yes, I appreciate this poster so much that I went to track down its other variants. They really need to print out more of these posters and stick them everywhere around the hospital, because 1. it helps to convince and persuade people, whether consciously or not, to not be a--h---s, and 2. IT HELPS TO WARN PEOPLE ON HOW LONG THE F---ING WAIT WOULD BE AND HOW F---ING FRUSTRATED THEY WOULD GET LIKE HOLY S--- I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR SIX F---ING HOURS IN TOTAL AT THAT F---ING POINT)

Finished the CT scan, they told me to go back to where I was waiting. But I was waiting in two different areas, one for the first doctor and one for the ENT doctor, so I didn't know where to go back to waiting at. They just shrugged and said, yeah, go back and we would call you. At that point I was already doubting, but I went back, and they had two displays with a list of patients at the A&E, and lo and behold, somehow my name was no longer on it. Went around bugging whoever doesn't seem busy enough to be able to listen to me complain.

About 30~45 minutes later(? Lost track of time entirely once I am no longer able to be constantly on my phone to conserve battery) the ENT doctor comes out and tells me he would call me in later. That "later" turns out to be God-knows-how-f===ing-long-later because about 30~45 minutes later(?) again, a nurse comes out to tell me the ENT doctor would see me shortly, and then I continued to wait (at which point in time I was perusing a number of hospital magazines that they had on a shelf nearby. 60% of its contents was about biological stuff for which 1. I am inherently not that interested in biology in the first place and 2. oh God it's f---ing 2am don't make me f---ing read biological terms in a magazine, 30% of it was s---ing the hospital's figurative c--- at what a great job it is doing and all the achievements it is achieving and s---, and 10% of it is genuinely interesting albeit too low in quantity to keep me engaged in this torturous, so-far-eight-hour wait that on hindsight I should have just skipped in favor of going home and waiting for the sweet, sweet embrace of death)

(Speaking of the magazine and it s---ing the hospital's c---, there was this paragraph that is so hilarious to my current situation that I just had to take a photo of it. I already knew people online were nicknaming this hospital "Cannot Go Home" when I was still Googling "cgh a&e wait times" two hours prior to keep me entertained back when I was still not in must-conserve-phone-battery mode, but them mentioning it here again just gave me the inspiration for the title of this very webpage you are currently reading, especially at that point I was stuck there for 8~9 hours and being definitely and definitively in the state of "Cannot Go Home")

(Also at that point, my phone had around 5% battery, and there was this constant blinking light that I tried to go into settings to see if I can disable hoping to conserve more battery by doing so. Couldn't find any settings. Didn't want to Google since that would just use up more battery. Disabled all the notification apps and still getting that blinking light. Nothing I could do but ignore it. Now that a day has passed and my phone battery has been charged and I can Google at my own time, I found out that the blinking is because "When device is ON with battery level lower than 15% and not connected to a charger, the LED indicator shall flash red every 4 seconds." OH YES GREAT THANKS THAT IS REALLY F---ING USEFUL AND HELPFUL! THE PHONE IS DYING SO LET US EXACERBATE ITS DEATH BY USING POWER UNNECESSARILY! Also I cannot disable it. Great.)

At around 3am (at that point in time I have waited there for 9 hours in total and thoroughly wanted to be put out of my misery), I bugged more clerks to look into my situation and what I was waiting for. I followed the clerk I bugged to the ENT room, where lo and behold, the ENT doctor is missing in action and nowhere to be seen. I followed her to look for a nurse to throw her problem (i.e., me) to. I then followed the nurse that she bugged to other nurses where they try to call the ENT doctor. Nope, completely uncontactable. Dude probably noped out of work and f---ed off right home. Good for him, I personally believe in work-life balance, though the 3am me at that time would need a Godlike amount of patience and tolerance to hold up to that personal belief at that point in time. (Also fun fact, at that point in time, it seems like there were only three doctors left in the entire A&E department. The first two doctors who saw me are nowhere in sight and I believe they have both called it a day and checked out at that point)

I asked the nurse for any doctor to just look at my CT scans, prescribe me painkillers, and let me go home. To her credit, she did that. The third doctor who took over me told me she checked my CT scans and couldn't find anything (though she also told me the CT scans were only at the neck, and considering I told the ENT doctor I was having chest pain, it should be obvious as f--- that the s--- is no longer in my throat so God f---ing knows why he still made me go for a CT scan just to look at my f---ing throat, but hey, I am not the one who graduated out of medical school!), prescribed me painkillers, told me I was not an urgent case since I was conscious and not vomiting (though none of the two prior doctors asked me if I was vomiting, and I told her I was vomiting at 7pm and she corrected, "oh you are not vomiting blood"), and to come back if I vomit blood or if my s--- was black or red. Admittedly, internally I thought to myself, "Yeah right I would rather stay home and wait for the sweet, sweet embrace of death than go back and wait another 9 hours again.

Around 3.15am, finally got painkillers. Nine f---ing hours after showing up at A&E. No proper medical treatment at all and just medicine to deal with the symptoms. Great. At that point in time I was so in pain that I just took the medicine out of the packaging that the pharmacist just inserted the medicine into ten seconds prior to eat the medicine. The pharmacist even asked, "Do you need water?" to which I replied, "Yes please." and she replied, "Oh we don't have water here." THEN WHY THE F--- DID YOU ASK?

3.30am, I was told to wait at the payment counter. I was in half-mind to not cough up at all considering the nine-hour wait, the lack of concrete of medical treatment, and DID I MENTION THE F---ING NINE-HOUR WAIT???? The person who took his medicine after me got called to the payment counter first. That was my cue to nope out and f--- off. If they send the bill to me afterwards, I am definitely disputing the charges for the aforementioned reasons.

I also took a screenshot of my phone so I would remember the time (and the battery level LOL)

Ended up walking home since there was no public transport available, and I was not in a particular rush to go home considering I had already spent 9 hours and 15 minutes very evidently not being-in-a-rush-to-go-home (something that I still regret as I write this a day later). Took this screenshot upon reaching home. Yes my phone survived. I am so proud of my phone.

Would I go to CGH again if I have a medical emergency?

HELL F---ING NO.

Sarcastically speaking, I would rather, as I have repeated throughout this webpage, go home and wait for the sweet, sweet release of death.

In hindsight, I spent 9 hours and 15 minutes at the hospital, just to get prescribed painkillers. I could get that level of medical treatment from any clinic, and definitely without that long a wait time, though my initial worry prior to the events of the day was that they would redirect me to the hospital.

Seriously speaking though, I would rather take an hour and a half of public transport to a different hospital to seek medical attention there. Even with the time spent commuting, at this point I can assure myself that the total time spent getting medical attention would be the same, and that I could probably leave the hospital in time to take public transport home, rather than having to, I don't know, f---ing walk home!!

Also it's 6.12pm the next day as I write this, almost 25 hours after I swallowed the God d---ed thing, and I am still having constant, lingering chest pain throughout. The only respite from this pain was when I was unconscious due to sleep, and the pain came back almost immediately upon me waking up (though there is that short period where I became conscious but apparently not connected to any of my pain sensors or something? (I don't know I didn't study biology) where I didn't feel any pain at all, though unfortunately it was short-lived)

If I do die from this, I can only hope this document would be useful in my family's attempt at suing the hospital.

Update on 12 Dec 2024:

The bill came in. Four hundred f---ing bucks. For the s---ty 9.5-hour wait, lack of medical treatment, and painkillers. Four. Hundred. F---ing. Bucks. Yeah f--- no I'm ain't paying s---.

Sent the following to a "SingHealth Payment Enquiry form" on FormSG:

675ac29b594e1567c2f66936

Update on 17 Dec 2024:

The hospital called to ask me for details regarding my bill dispute. Hope this goes well.

Update on 26 Dec 2024:

Nope, the m-----f-----ers called me back telling me they would not be waiving my bill and to pay up. Intended to escalate to the Ministry of Health or something, but it seems like they do not deal with trivial matters like this, and are only responsible for setting healthcare policies and staff.

Considered contacting the Singapore Medical Council, but 1. it seems like they are more for if you have issues with a particular healthcare profession (which I really don't, or at least not in particular) and 2. they are sitting on 2.0-star average on Google with 28 reviews with people complaining about much more serious issues than me.

Also considered mediation. Apparently there is this "MOH Holdings Pte Ltd" that offers mediation, but h--- s--- are they sus af. What even is a "holdings company"?? And I have to pay them to be impartial?? Not even to help, just to be impartial???

Ended up deciding to see if my Member of Parliament can help. As an introvert, thankfully he has his e-mail address online (probably due to the pandemic making in-person meetings impossible). If he can help then he definitely has my vote during the next election LOL. Sent him the following e-mail (with details censored, obviously):

Update on 2 Jan 2025:

The hospital gave me a phone call again to inform me that the Member of Parliament got into contact with the hospital's CEO, but still, no, they will still be continuing to demand me to pay up, reiterating the points told to me through the phone on 26 Dec 2024, which, if memory serves me right, goes along somewhere the lines of "the services charged in your bill have been rendered accordingly" or whatever. Not addressing a single point of my concerns at all.

I asked for a response in writing (which honestly as an introvert is something I should have asked of way earlier. Like holy s--- this freaking hospital has a fetish for phone calls oh God), in which they agreed.

Update on 4 Jan 2025:

Two days later, still no response in writing to which I asked for and which they agreed. Ended up sending a second letter to them on FormSG:

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Sent the following letter to the Member of Parliament to keep him updated as well:

Update on 5 Feb 2025:

After a month, I received a response in writing from the hospital, and guess what form it comes in? THE POST. A LETTER! IN THE POST! IN THE YEAR 2025!! (Also, while writing this, just noticed the date as stated in the letter, so cool, good to know that it takes twelve days for a letter to reach your recipient by the post.) Anyway, the contents of the letter:

Admittedly, as a pessimist, the moment I saw the envelope this morning, I instantly knew that their response was going to be "lol no, f--- you pay up", so I instantly skipped to the last paragraph since it is obvious that if their answer was going to be no, then all the paragraphs before that are going to be justifications after justifications, and what do you know, I hate it when I am right as a pessimist, but alas, that was entirely and exactly how I became a pessimist in the first place.

The letter did not contain any specific e-mail addresses and only a generic feedback@[hospital.domain], so you can kind of tell they chose to send the response in post so I cannot reply. However! They did list two names at the end of the letter, and as public servants working in a public hospital, their e-mail addresses are available in a government database accessible online to everyone anyway, so well, don't mind if I slide into the DMs! (For some reason I thought the phrase was "sneak into the DMs". Guess I'm too old for this youngster slang LOL)

Update on 24 Mar 2025:

Received another letter from them in the post. My immediate reaction upon seeing the envelope on my table being "Yeah they are definitely going to continue demanding that I cough up the f---ing money, aren't they?" really speaks volumes in terms of my expectations at what this bloody hospital will do, even before I opened the envelope and read the letter myself.

Sent the following reply in e-mail pretty much as a last-ditch-effort middle finger:

Very valuable life lesson: Next time you think you have a medical emergency, just stay home, and wait for the sweet, sweet embrace of death. It's just as effective, it's way more comfortable, you won't get charged $437.50 for m-----f---ing painkillers, and you definitely won't f---ing lose faith and confidence in your country's public healthcare system and the folks in white who swore the Hippocratic Oath

Had to grab a second phone just for the photo below LOL