I'll be the first to admit that I took this picture without permission.
(I was rushing to lunch, and, well, I feared the wrath of the clinic staff even more)
But this picture holds special significance to me.
Because it looks (almost) exactly as how I remember it to be.
The walls of of this clinic- my childhood clinic- are still grey.
And the fluorescent lights hanging from the ceiling are still the same.
The doctors (whoever might be running the clinic now) seem to have had an unanimous agreement to keep the decor in place- as it is- since its early days, at least from the outside, so much so that I can look in beyond the shutters and the door, and see myself (as a young child) sitting against the grey wall on plastic chairs, waiting for my name to be called.
I didn't come here very often, thank God, but the few times I did left impressions on me.
I remember sitting on the row of chairs along this side of the wall with mum and dad on either side (it was always both of them because dad drove) waiting for my name to be called.
I also remember the pink colored cherry flavored cough syrup which Dr. Ho prescribed, and the black colored one which was supposed to taste like Coca Cola but was nothing like it.
There weren't many occasions for tablets nor capsules- I was too young and Dr. Ho was a paediatrician. except for once when I had a serious case of stomach worms.
I was probably ten or eleven at that time, and I remember it being very, very uncomfortable for me.
We tried our usual home remedies of medicated oil and castor oil, and even though they helped to relieve the pain, didn't ease the diarrhea and that's when we got the car and dad drove us to Kai Clinic along East Coast Road.
I have a vague recollection of the tablet box which my parents kept in the third drawer of our kitchen cabinets.
I also have a vague recollection of the tablets themselves.
I think they were white.
Then again, most tablets at that time were white, even for children.
I'm thankful to have had Dr. Alan Ho as my childhood doctor.
It's not always that someone knows someone who knows someone, and even though there're many paediatric clinics around our country in all the estates these days. Kai Clinic (despite its changed opening hours) is one that I'd recommend, and if I had a child, would go to, as well.