CGH’s
HomeCare Assist, our patient welfare charity fund,
was launched since 2002 and making a difference
to the lives of needy patients in Singapore. Two
of the patients whose lives we touched was the
Tham sisters.
When Dr Vina Doshi, Registrar, Department of Geriatric
Medicine, examined Ms Tham Ah Kuan, 82 years old, she
was shocked to find bedbugs on her body. Ms Tham was
suffering from anemia as a result and required blood
transfusion. Dr Doshi referred Ms Tham to CGH’s
Medical Social Services and Ms Tan Kok Kng, Care Coordinator,
did a home visit the very next day to assess her home
environment and social situation.
Ms Tham and her younger sister stayed in a 1-room rented flat at Sims Drive.Their
house was cluttered, dark and dirty. Bedbugs were found everywhere in the flat.
To get to the root of their problems, a thorough fumigation,
cleaning, repainting and fixing work was needed but
the sisters had to be housed somewhere else but they
have nowhere to go. Ms Tan worked with Moral Case Management
Service, Kolam Ayer Constituency Office and St Andrew’s
Community Hospital and arranged for the sisters to
be admitted to CGH followed by St Andrew's Community
Hospital for medical treatment during the 2 weeks when
fumigation, cleaning, painting and rewiring work was
carried out.
As the flat was infested by bed bugs, everything that Tham sisters possessed
had to be thrown away. They were left with no furniture, no household items and
no clothes. All they had left was a few hundred dollars and a few pieces of jewellery.
Fortunately, Ms Tan Kok Kng tapped into CGH’s
HomeCare Assist charity fund, to household necessities
eg. paint, light bulbs, crockery, furniture eg. a chest
of drawers, a coffee table, kitchen trolley and a water
heater worth $514. The sisters have started to learn
to use the water heater and they no longer have to
boil water for their showers.
The elderly sisters are very happy with the new place,
which is clean and bright. Their neighbours dubbed
it the “Shangri-La of Sims Drive”. |
