OPEN LETTER TO MSF ABOUT POOR SERVICE AT FAMILY SERVICE CENTRE

Dear Sir,
After the following incident which my family have encounter, I am not sure whether the FAMILY SERVICE CENTRE is functiong as what it is stated in your website:
https://app.msf.gov.sg/…/Supporting-…/Family-Service-Centres

The incident happend on 8th of December 2016, 4pm. My child, my wife and I were having an appointment with Seng Kang FSC (Family Service Centre) to discuss about our coomunication problem with my child.

Prior to this appoitnment one week before, we had visited this FSC and spend around 15 minutes to answer some questions and making the appointment for this 8th of December appointment. Me and my wife were specifically apply leave from work for this appointment. There were 5 people in this meeting: My child, my wife and I, one senior interviewer Malay lady, and a young Chinese lady intern who sit-in to understudy the interview.

After spending an hour going through the questioning session and filling up 4 personal confidential information forms, the interviewer told my family to wait while she go and consult her superior about our case. After 5 minutes, the interviewer come back and simply told us that our case is beyond their expertise and ask us to go to another organization to seek for help. Upon facing this situation, both me and my wife were utterly disappointed with the results of this whole episodE!

We took leave from work and I remember even during the meeting my wife’s phone still receiving call from her clients. Yet after all the time we have been wasted in the meeting with no results at the end. That is not what we had expected. Does it mean that this is like buying things in the wet-market, becouse FSC did not sell the things we want so we got to go some where else? If social service have degraded to such an extend I am really sad about the future of government linked social services!

Comparing to consulting a GP by visiting a polyclinic, even if the GP could not help for one’s illness, he will wrote a letter and channel this patient to a hospital specialist, and the hospital will call this patient for an appointment and so on. Not to mention about the consulting time is just a few minutes in polyclinic comparing to our case in FSC which last for an hour.

Your website stated that FSC services include:
“Information and Referral (I&R): Linking families to more appropriate help agencies and resources in the community.”

We did not see this apply to my family case. We were just ask to leave and seek for help in another organization by ourselves! I sincerely hope that the FSC under MSF can be as efficient and effective in their services as compare to polyclinic, therefore can service Singaporean family as efficient as serving the foreigner.

Regards
John Lok
11 Dec 2016