Singapore — One man’s heartbreaking account on Facebook of how his 90-year-old mum is suffering in isolation in hospital has gone on to be widely shared.
Due to the Covid pandemic, Mr EngYeow Goh has barely been allowed to visit his mother in the hospital. She is a two-time wheelchair-bound stroke survivor who can no longer move her hands, which means she cannot use a mobile device to communicate with her family.
This has had a negative effect on her wellbeing, he wrote in an anguished Facebook post on Wednesday (Sept 29).
“The Government’s recent slew of measures to curb the spread of the virus after a relaxation last month caused a spike in infections is turning into a personal tragedy for me,” he wrote, referring to the ban on all visitors from visiting their loved ones in the hospital.
At the end of his post, Mr EngYeoh had a question for Health Minister Ong Ye Kung, who “gained widespread publicity with his pronouncement that the current wave of cases should be seen a rite of passage in order to regain normality.
But does he know that his wager is my mother’s life?”
He expressed the hope that policymakers would have more compassion in allowing the elderly to be visited by their loved ones.
Mr EngYeoh wrote that his mum had difficulty breathing on Tuesday last week (Sept 21), which is why he brought her to Singapore General Hospital’s emergency department (A&E) at once.
His mum had a slight fever and was put into an isolation ward, and when she turned out to be virus-free, she stayed there for three nights because of a shortage of beds in the general ward.
It was during this time that the Government announced that it was banning visitors from the hospital until next month, which meant Mr EngYeoh could not visit her.
“The confinement turned out to be a nightmare for her and caused her illness to deteriorate sharply,” he wrote.
Before her admission at SGH, she had been clearheaded, was eating well, and didn’t even need an ambulance to be brought to the hospital.
He was only able to see her via video call on an iPad, and he wrote that the deterioration in her condition shocked him. But because his mum was put on the “dangerously ill list,” he was able to see her.
“I have no doubt that her medical condition deteriorated so badly and so fast because she was badly frightened being left alone in the ward without her loved ones by her side.
This had caused her to lose the will to live.”
Fortunately, when he was with her, he “held her hands and managed to coax her back from the brink.”
But after she got better, his mum was removed from the “dangerously ill list” and he could no longer visit her.
“When I appealed to the doctors and nurses, they could only shake their hands and say that this is ‘government policy’ and there was nothing they could do about it.
Before I left, my mum was begging me not to abandon her and to bring her home.
I would have done so, if she had not been so weak and she was still on oxygen support. It broke my heart to see her in such a state.”
And although the nurses kindly allowed more video calls, Mr EngYeoh wrote that his mum’s condition seems to have deteriorated again.
“She is as helpless as a newborn baby and needs all the love and support she can get.
I hope that out of compassion, the policy-makers will take another look at their visitation policies during this lockdown period and allow one pre-designated visitor to see their elderly loved ones once a day – like what they have done for paediatric patients.
Having lived a ripe old age, it is very cruel to leave them forlorn and lonely in the ward without any of their loved ones by their side, especially if they are feeble and helpless like my mum.”
/TISG