There are strange things that abound in this country of brazen ideas launched by the inane. Sometimes things stare at you right in the face, and you are struck by the obviousness of the object, or sometimes you just live on not wanting to know. The latter is more likely in Malaysia.

The headlines of the oldest daily recently pummelled the point further in how we are so bold electronically, doing new things always before the rest of the world. It is this type of thinking that leads to falling roofs in modern court complexes. Working the form over function.

Why should Malaysia invest in E-medicine, so we can get medical attention in remote places using high technology, when everyday Malaysians living in a city circled by expensive hospitals cannot get life-saving treatment even if they drive to the said hospitals?

Why all the bluster when no one really thinks about why ambulances in Malaysia work, or if the paramedics in them have any inkling on how to save lives?

Why oh why is the simple and tested not good enough for Malaysia? Is the point lost when the same newspaper inside had an insight as to how a middle-aged mother was caught between hospitals because she could not afford the first one, and died at the other one?

There is no use having the best system in the world if the human resources are not trained, rewarded, planned and managed. And what is the point in getting E-medicine, when there are only two Internet Service Providers and both their services gets disrupted without rhyme or reason all the time.

So the scene given lies in fair Gua Musang where a woman with a heart condition arrives at the government clinic at 11pm. Gets on a dial-up connection to KL to the Institut Jantung Negara, and the doctor has gone home. What then? And if the doctor gives instructions, who is to understand the instructions in Gua Musang? And even if there is a doctor in Gua Musang, you would need to have data delivery efficiency for the info to flow from Gua Musang to KL, and back.

I am not anti-technology, I am anti-fad. You cannot incorporate technology into a chain of delivery which is failing in the present. Technology augments and accelerates the care already present. The operative term, the care 'already present'.

If patients who are nearby and have vehicles cannot get medical care in time, why bother with the technology and the large financial commitment when the same money can be used for basic medical delivery mechanisms?

And what happens when machines are misused? Low-tech facilities like toilets are not maintained, so what are the chances that a system installed in Gua Musang will get its adequate maintenance without having to pay an arm and a leg because there are hidden costs to maintenance contracts in Malaysia?

Why not spend some time on how we can ensure better health for the most number of Malaysians using the limited resources available, or through the overarching support of a pooled insurance system?

This leads us to the more bizarre 'I-Card' for all foreign workers in Malaysia. No wonder many are beginning to think Malaysia is xenophobia manifested in its truest form. ID cards all the time. And miss having one and you are end up in jail. No joke, many have found themselves there already. No foreign student is impressed by how Malaysia treats them as threats to national security. Most local students steer away from the foreigners in their campuses, and why would they not for xenophobia is state-sanctioned.

Every nation with resources faces migrants in a globalised world, and we are a nation right smack in the path of global movement; therefore many will arrive. The answer in dealing with foreigners is not kid gloves though draconian laws are not the answer either. If anything it gives us the placebo effect. Thinking all is well, we spend more and more on newer and newer, smarter and smarter cards, and of course readers of these cards, and the software which accompanies.

Why not train our policemen better? That might be a novel answer. Why not engage foreign students as people who are kind enough to invest in Malaysia, and use the closeness to locate those who abuse the system? Families in Malaysia would never condone their children studying in US, Britain and Australia being arrested for not bringing their passport while at a 7-11, so why the double standard here?

The zenith of our siege mentality is going to be reached, and a serious review of who we think we are in the world as it is, is going to happen. Many of us are not going to be happy with the audit result then. Security is not about more people in green uniforms with poor knowledge roaming the streets. That is just a recipe for a nightmare state. No one knowingly takes that path.

Security is not about infusing fear in all and sundry. Security is about developing a sensible way to ensure people are protected and that they are confident an immediate and reasonable recourse is available. Not just lip-service police reports at the 'balai' where the sergeants assures you nothing will come of the report.

The brazen have indeed made me inane today.