A small triumph for biochemistry
I USED to be one of two people responsible for the biochemistry lab in the hospital. It served to confirm a doctor’s initial suspicions. We could get back with reasonably accurate measurements of a patient’s blood sugar or electrolyte levels; a chemical or enzymatic profile of a patient’s liver or kidney, etc. Nowadays, it’s automated but we had to do it manually with titrations galore.
It was mostly routine, but could be unpleasant if you didn’t care for the sight, or smell, of plasma, serum or urine. No one did but that was the way lige worked. I seemed largely irrelevant except when I drew up the monthly overtime lists – the lab ran 24/7. Then the staff paid attention.
More interesting were the new, and heretofore untried, tests. In the 70s, the government realised that drugs were a problem. So tests had to be implemented to prove that a suspected heroin user had, indeed, imbibed, smoked, snorted or injected the stuff.
If so, the urine of said suspect would unfailingly contain morphine derivatives – refined byproducts of opium from which an array of pain-numbing substances including heroin are derived.
Only the IMR or Kuala Lumpur GH could do the tests then as they were expensive. By the early 80’s, however, drug addiction had become so bad that the state hospitals were roped in. So we introduced thin layer chromatography (TLC) for urine drug assay.
As one of two biochemists in Ipoh hospital then, we inspected the final plates – they were literally glass plates coated with silica gel – and would sign the results declaring “positive” or “negative,” accordingly. These were criminal matters that could end up in court so we kept the plates just in case.
But there were so many addicts in Perak then – all samples were sent to Ipoh – the tests soon became as routine as to be tedious.
Time marched on and the work cast a pall over my life. Finally, I quit the job after I’d been offered a job as a journalist.
But The Lab hadn’t forgotten me. One afternoon, I was engrossed in a tele-conversation when I became aware I was being watched by nearly everyone on the newsdesk. There was a policeman looming over me.
He handed me a document that briskly ordered me to turn up on a said Monday at the Tapah Sessions Court to testify against an accused person whom my signature had kept remanded.
The only impressive thing – to my colleagues and the policeman at least – was that I was to be an “expert” witness. In fact, the cop looked scandalised that I’d been reduced to mere reporter.
I was petrified although I maintained the cool demeanor befitting any expert. The reason was simple.
Despite the thousands of forms I must have signed, I’d never, ever been asked to testify. In addition, I was out of the profession and could hardly remember the TLC procedure or much else for that matter. What if Karpal Singh was his lawyer? The day dawned and, after I’d stood up to respond to my name being called, was invited by the magistrate to appear in chambers. It turned out to be a small room peopled by a grim policeman and a miserable looking suspect.
There was no sign of Karpal or anyone remotely resembling a lawyer.
The magistrate showed me the “positive” test form bearing my signature. “That yours?” he asked. “Yes” I replied, relaxing, as no one seemed to want to shout “objection.”
“Any chance of an error?” he asked, immediately gaining my respect. False positives were near-negligible – I had boned up in the interim – but he’d done the decent thing. Sentencing followed and the fellow was whisked off.
“I know you-la,” quoth the magistrate. “You’re three years my senior.” And the usual “what happened to such and such” followed.
Justice had been meted out in all of eight minutes. As Watson might have told Crick, it was a small triumph for biochemistry.