A decade ago, I had an experience that left me profoundly grateful to Singapore’s healthcare system. During a work trip to the island state, I was suddenly taken ill and succumbed to a rare variety of meningitis. In many countries, I would have died but two extraordinary things occurred. First, a work colleague had a strange premonition that something was wrong and came to my hotel room, where she found me sliding into a coma. Second, the colleague then had me rushed to a local hospital, where Singaporean doctors identified the problem with astonishing efficiency and then took a bold medical gamble to save my life. (Essentially, they injected every type of antibiotic they possessed directly into my heart because they did not have any tailored way of treating the rare strain of meningitis I had.)
10年前的一段经历让我对新加坡的医疗体系大为感激。在这个岛国出差时，我突然生病，患上了一种罕见的脑膜炎。换成在许多国家，我恐怕早已撒手人寰。但发生了两件奇迹。首先，一位同事突感不祥，于是来到我的酒店房间，发现我渐渐不省人事。然后，这位同事急忙把我送到当地一家医院，新加坡医生以惊人的效率查出症结，采取了大胆的疗法，挽救了我的生命。（实际上，他们是把手头所有种类的抗生素注入了我的心脏，因为他们并没有医治我这种罕见脑膜炎的专门方法。）