Ensure officers know how and when to enforce dress code

ON Friday in Parliament, Health Minister Dr Zaliha Mustafa very clearly laid down one important rule for her ministry’s personnel: Those seeking medical attention at government health facilities should not be turned away because of their attire.

She was responding to a supplementary question from Datuk Muhammad Bakhtiar Wan Chik (Pakatan Harapan-Balik Pulau).

In her reply, Dr Zaliha brought up the Hippocratic Oath, a form of which most doctors globally swear to before commencing practice.

“Every medical practitioner and personnel must uphold ethics. They have taken the Hippocratic Oath to provide the best medical care possible,” she said.

Here at last we have clarity in an area that seems mired in uncertainty and which constantly brings up stories of women being denied entry to government premises because of the way they are dressed.

If you were in urgent need of medical treatment, would you even be aware of how you’re dressed?

Or what if you’ve just been in a traumatic incident and was still in a state of shock as you head to the nearest police station?

News of two incidents from earlier this year has been circulating online, going viral and even appearing on regional news portals.

One woman was refused emergency medical treatment at Hospital Kampar in Perak in late January and another denied entry to a police station in Kajang, Selangor, in mid- February for being in attire that did not cover their knees. In both cases, the women were reportedly wearing Bermuda shorts.

For those who aren’t big on fashion, that means they were in long shorts that reached to just above the knees, not short-shorts that end much higher on the legs.

There are those who point out that the officials were simply doing their duty and enforcing the dress code for government premises.

Indeed, Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Acryl Sani Abdullah Sani was quoted as saying that the dress code for the public at police stations is based on a directive from the Chief Secretary of the Government and the officer was just doing his job enforcing it.

But other people are saying it was morally wrong to turn the women away in circumstances that were far from normal.

In both cases, the officers who denied the women entry showed no consideration for their situations and simply followed guidelines blindly.

Is that wrong? Or should we demand that government personnel exercise judgment like thinking people?

Perhaps.

After all, surely people in authority – and yes, a supposedly “lowly” guard is in a position of authority as a literal gatekeeper – do need to show some common sense and exercise discretion in deploying regulations.

But since independent thinking isn’t exactly encouraged in Malaysia – our education system famously emphasises memorisation over original thought – perhaps the guidelines need to be spelled out in more detail.

Heads of departments or relevant ministries have to craft more explicit definitions that cover every scenario possible to address these dress code issues that keep coming up.

Perhaps the Chief Secretary to the Government could revisit the directive?