Reflections

I think if you work long enough in public service providing healthcare, you don’t really need epidemiological studies to inform you on key things. You know your population. You know who is disproportionately affected. And you (kind of) know what you need to do to help them and the many barriers you would have to overcome to achieve that. Six years ago I was working as a dental officer in Kuala Lumpur, going to secondary schools to deliver dental treatment. I remember we were introducing a smoking cessation programme in schools; part of the chairside treatment required us to ask the students about their smoking status. I remember the Malay boy who admitted to smoking; form five, bespectacled, acne, kelas hujung. Parents divorced. Mum works two jobs. He told me he is the second born, but the first son- and his older sister is away in college. First picked up smoking in primary school, after many years in curiosity observing his father smoking. I want to tell you that his story is unique but it is always the same demography, in every school; Malay, boy, low socioeconomic household, kelas hujung, smoker father. I thought about the time when i was in his shoes, a 17-year-old student. I remember being assisted by adults in my life, narrowing down my options, identifying the pathways to achieve them, planning out scholarship applications and how i would be spending my time while waiting for the results. It’s hard to feel accomplished when you know that a lot of it is owed to luck, or, as a Muslim would believe it rezeki, that is sustenance from God that is written for you. I wondered what if I was the one with the divorced parents, a mum who works two jobs, and a smoker father.