The recent MND AIM Report and the City Harvest Church saga reminded me how powerful people are when they work in an organisation.
When people work in an organisation, groupthink occurs and sometimes, they can put out or say some of the most unbelievable things.
When I was sacked by a hospital, you can imagine some of the most unreasonable and laughable things said by the hospital HR management.
Without going into details (or else it will be a long story), I got a patient who complained about my service even though it was the correct procedure and medication. Most of us who work in the hospital know that most hospital management kow-tow to unreasonable patients and will not hesitate to side with the patient especially when the patient is rich and wealthy.
I decided to take legal action. (coz my hospital union useless and they said they only willing to be neutral party)
When my lawyer sent a letter requesting to meet up with the HR, the HR director had the audacity to tell my lawyer off and said that I breached patient's confidentiality by telling my lawyer about the patient's complaint and medical condition.
Usually, when one receives a letter of demand from a lawyer, one would eat humble pie and set up a meeting to better understand the legal claim.
I suspected that the HR director may not have been sued before so she was quite ya-ya papaya and arrogant.
When the Court summon was out for the HR director to attend the pre-trial hearing, the HR department engaged an outside law firm to defend them and once again, I was disgusted and shocked when the defendent's law firm openly told the Judge that since I disclosed the patient's medical condition to my lawyer, I should be penalised.
Then they also accused me of using the hospital's internal correspondence to submit as evidence to the Judge and said that I was in breach of Official Secrets Act.
The power of Groupthink is scary when you are alone. People in a group or an organisation may coerce to make you feel that you are wrong but you may be correct.
My lawyer could not even believe what he was hearing. Even for someone who is not legally-trained, common sense will tell us that if one is accused of something, he can breach any confidentiality agreements to defend himself. Cloaking yourself in Official Secrets Act and using confidentiality as a weapon only makes one sound stupid and ridiculous.
The Judge, luckily, ruled that the hospital management could not use patient's confidentiality as a legal defence and allowed me to submit the correspondence as evidence to the Judge.
He also chided the HR director that since she also disclosed the patient's medical condition to her external law firm, she may have to penalise and sack herself too, going by her standards.
CJ