These are real professionals, their statement is clear and the government should respond accordingly.

Making a decision to sell the national heart institute and effectively privatise it on the one hand and making a statement that the poor will be looked after on the other, is not only vague

but a devious way of getting out of a wrangle. Who are the poor?

There a poor people who do not pay too much taxes who live in huge houses, own other low- cost homes they rent out to other poor people and own cars that belie their status. So who are the poor?

IJN has a rich history of success, so does the Tun Hussein Onn Eye Hospital. These are not privatised institutions, but rather the pride of the nation and they should be preserved.

We have spent more on helicopters and submarines than we should have. A fraction of those savings could have met the demands for a pay rise of the noble professionals in IJN. It will motivate them and raise the status of these institutions, which almost every Malaysian talks about with pride except for some politicians who view them as vehicles of profit, and where these profits are eventually directed to, one does not have to suffer to guess.

The doctors are reported to have said, “We would like to reiterate our commitment to serve IJN in its current form and want to stress that the move must not be seen as a response to our demands for better pay.”

This is a clear indication that they have pride of place in IJN as it is today, it was these professionals and people like them who walked its corridors since its inception who made the institution what it is today. Do not treat them like they are ordinary employees but as stake holders in this nation’s destiny. They have done IJN proud and the institute is a pride of the nation as well.