It is ok to cheat?

What am I doing in the office at this unholy hour? It is 6:00 AM and the 12^th floor International Department office is abuzz with us going about our business, which should be taking place during the usual 8 AM – 5 PM working hours.

Please don’t get me wrong, I am not complaining about the time that I have to wake up this early. I’m an early bird by habit and getting up at 5 in the morning is my usual waking hour just like any aging bloke of the baby-boomer generation.

I should have given this piece the title - “the opportunity to grow – lost,” but I had to consider the impact of the title on a curious soul.

Accreditation inspections for any company are great opportunities for growth - nobody can refute that. There is no better time to bring up the performance of the staff and the physical plant of a company to a higher level than during inspections for accreditation, especially if the certifying body is of international repute.

This is not the first time that this has happened to us. We’ve been through this masquerade a couple of times already and it’s getting to be habit-forming.

You’ll know that there is an impending inspection when a flurry of activity at the office of the Director of Quality Improvement across the hall from our office is amped. Very soon we would be swamped by stacks of ante-dated attendance sheets that we have to sign signifying our attendance in some non-existent seminar for the staff. Answer sheets of examinations that were supposed to have been given in a previous year are also circulated for our names and answers.

You’ll see impromptu tables on strategic locations holding anti-A sanitizing gel, furniture are moved in or out, refrigerators and water dispensers in the office and hallways mysteriously disappear, work schedules are disrupted with many of the staff asked to either go on vacation leave or their work schedules are moved to weird hours like mine just so we don’t come in contact with the inspectors, etc, etc.

Patients for elective plastic surgery are not accepted during the week of inspection for the reason that many staff in that department have been prevented from reporting to work due to obvious discrepancies in their documents and job descriptions. This is the same in the wards and other departments that are accepting international patients.

In a few weeks the transformation is very obvious and as the dates for the inspection approach you will notice rehearsals in roles and instructions on what to do and what not to do.

It’s like we’re all holding our breaths for the 3 or 4 days that the accrediting team is around. 

After they leave and the passing results are displayed, the management congratulates everyone, free lunch is served, the Quality Improvement teams gets praised and then everything collapses back to pre-inspection conditions.

The effort and expense may have resulted in some improvement especially in the aspect of equipment and building structure, but we’re still back in square one in terms of attitude and bearing.

The plaque and other marks of passing the accreditation that adorn the entrance and publications were not gained by honesty and integrity. The opportunity to excel and grow is lost, and the message that the management has sent the rank-and-file is loud and clear:

“It is ok to cheat!”