Hospital issues social media apology for ‘racist’ scholarship ad

Pantai Hospital Sungai Petani, in Malaysia’s northern province of Kedah, has issued an apology for a since-removed call for scholarship candidates that a large number of social media users quickly called out as racist.

Previously, the hospital had stipulated that candidates were preferably of “Chinese, Siamese, Christian and/or Indian” descent, leaving out Malaysia’s majority Malay ethnic community.

On Monday afternoon, the hospital apologized for what they called “unacceptable content” for the scholarship ad, adding that the copy had not been approved, nor did it reflect the values of the organization.

https://www.facebook.com/pantaisp/posts/1733980650035073

“At Pantai Hospitals, we embrace a fair employment policy and we do not condone any practices that are prejudicial against any race or religion,” they wrote.

They added that their ad was promptly corrected, and according to local health news blog Prometheuspens “a new advertisement on the scholarships offered by both Pantai Hospital Sungai Petani and Amanjaya Specialist Center now states a requirement for students to be fluent in English and Bahasa Malaysia, while an “ability to speak in Mandarin/ Tamil or other languages is an added advantage.”

Many netizens continue to call for a hospital boycott, in spite of their apology, saying that such race-based favoritism has no place in the medical profession.

However, the incident has also been seized upon by unscrupulous social media users to sling racially-charged slurs at both the hospital, and each other. Some users used slurs against a woman of Chinese-descent who called Singapore’s medical standards higher, adding that she was not “supposed to be” in Malaysia.

One user rightly pointed out:

However, one Twitter user decided to bring up the glaring parallels between a hospital’s calling specifically for minority candidates, and the Malaysian government’s official policy of affirmative action for the Malay majority, providing housing discounts, favorable loans and a quota of university placements among other benefits:

https://twitter.com/harriszainul/status/1097888226860093440

The debate rages on, but one thing is certain — all these bigoted comments have got to go.