I REFER to Mr Goh Keng Hwee's letter on Monday, 'Police should cope better with epileptics' and the article on Wednesday, 'Man arrested over drunken behaviour'.

The incident occurred on Oct 1 at about 6.45pm. Police found a man lying on the ground in the middle of the road along Jalan Besar. He was incoherent and disorientated. As the officers were unable to find contact information on him to call his next of kin, they took him back to the police station for safe custody.

At the police station, he was able to inform an officer that he was an epileptic patient. However, when another officer interviewed him for further details, he was not able to respond and was silent. In view of his condition, the man was placed in a special holding area to be closely monitored.

At about 9pm, the man suffered a seizure. The officers present attended to him immediately and at the same time, summoned an ambulance. Upon its arrival, the ambulance paramedics assessed that the man was already in a stable condition and did not need to be conveyed to hospital. The man was subsequently interviewed and was able to give an account of how he wound up lying in the middle of road earlier. He was then released to his next of kin at about 12.40am on Oct 2.

Since 2004, police have contracted a professional private medical group to develop training packages for our personnel in identifying and managing individuals suffering from epilepsy. Police will contact the Epilepsy Care Group to explore its views and ideas as to how procedures can be improved in such situations.

We fully empathise with the family's anxiety and have explained matters to them. We have reviewed the case and agree we could have handled the situation better, including how we could have put the man in touch with his family expeditiously as well as refer to a doctor the request by his family for him to take the medicine the family later took to the station. On this, we will strive to do better.

DSP Paul Tay
Assistant Director (Media Relations)
Singapore Police Force

This article was first published in The Straits Times on Oct 25, 2008.

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