A 95-year-old wheelchair-bound woman was left waiting at a HDB void deck at Hougang Ave 8 for six hours during a family dispute about who she should be living with. The elderly woman was accompanied by a domestic helper.
One of the elderly woman’s daughters, 52-year-old Mdm Shen, told the Chinese daily that her mother became confined to a wheelchair more than a year ago, after suffering a hip injury caused by a fall. This also caused her mother to spend large amounts of time in bed. Mdm Shen revealed:
“My mother has been living with my eldest sister for about 20 years. My niece helps to care for her too.
“However in the past two or three years, my mother has been bad-tempered. She often scolds and hits my niece. On April 16 at around 8pm, my mother not only scolded the maid, but also kicked (her). It’s worrying.”
“My mother said she wanted to stay at my older brother’s house. Therefore, we arranged for her to go over that night. My brother and his wife also said they would take care of her properly.
“However, two days later, they unexpectedly sent my mother back to my eldest sister’s place.”
Since her mother was still “throwing a tantrum” and since Mdm Shen discovered her mother’s desire to move out from her older sister’s place, Mdm Shen and her niece decided to return her mother back to her brother’s house:
“At 11am that day, we were driving to my brother’s home. My mother and the maid sat at the void deck and were waiting to go upstairs.
“I realised that my sister-in-law was returning from buying food and was trying to avoid us from a distance. Afterwards, when my niece discovered her, she left my mother in my sister-in-law’s care and left.”
Mdm Shen revealed that she received a call from her brother later, requesting her to come and fetch their mother. It was only then that Mdm Shen realised her mother had been sitting at the void deck the whole time:
“The two of them had been waiting downstairs for six hours just like that. It made us feel really angry. My brother and his wife had actually not allowed my mother into their home!”
Mdm Shen’s sister-in-law, however, told the Chinese daily a different story. Refuting the allegations, 62-year-old Mdm Zhang said that it was Mdm Shen who left the elderly woman at their block, even though her mother-in-law did not want to move from her eldest daughter’s home:
“My mother-in-law did not even want to move out. It was said that she would only be temporarily staying with us for a few days.
“It was Mdm Shen who left her mother downstairs without a care. She did not hand her mother over to us and simply left on her own with her niece.”