SINGAPORE — With her sunny disposition and energetic manner, it is difficult to believe that, some seven years ago, Mdm Wee Kwek Choo had contemplated ending her life. This was because she was emotionally and physically exhausted from caring for her husband and younger brother, both stroke patients unable to care for themselves.

“This was about a year after my husband had his stroke ... everything cost money, and I was tired ... I thought about doing it,” said Mdm Wee, 66, who still single-handedly supports her husband and brother on her salary as a domestic cleaner.

What stopped her was the thought of her late parents. “I thought I heard (my father’s) voice, saying, ‘Where are you going?’ That jolted me,” she said. “I never thought about it again.”

Since then, she has tirelessly devoted herself to caring for her husband and brother. Last month, she was given the Hero Caregiver award at the Eastern Health Alliance Caring Awards. The alliance includes Changi General Hospital (CGH), SingHealth polyclinics and The Salvation Army Peacehaven Nursing Home, where Mdm Wee’s husband has been living for the past seven years.

Mdm Wee’s day begins at 3am, when she rises for breakfast and then makes her way to the homes she cleans. “I am very lucky, I don’t fall sick and I am in good health,” said Mdm Wee. She has been working as a domestic cleaner for more than 40 years, and proudly declares that she still gets down on her knees to clean the floors.

After the cleaning is done, she goes home, does the housework and cooks dinner for her brother, before bringing dinner to the nursing home for her husband, Mr Goh Bee Seng, 69.

There, she feeds and bathes him, then gets him ready for bed before heading home at 11pm. “The home makes an exception for me and lets me stay late ... they’ve been very understanding,” she said.

Asked how she copes with the stress of being a caregiver, Mdm Wee, who has no children, said: “After a while, I get over it ... I don’t even talk to my friends about this ... What is there to say? I am happy that I see my husband and I want to be there to care for him. I feel bad if I am not with him.”

She is matter-of-fact about her challenging circumstances, which she said is not uncommon among her elderly peers. “My friend, her husband fell very ill and she was having a difficult time ... One week later, he jumped from their flat,” she said. “That was terrible.”

But Mdm Wee admits the financial strain is her biggest challenge: Her husband’s care at Peacehaven costs S$300 a month (after means-testing and subsidies), which Mdm Wee pays for using funds from her husband’s CPF Retirement Account. She makes about S$800 a month, which she says is enough, but worries as her husband’s account will run out soon. “The home has been very understanding when I can’t pay on time,” she added.

She credits her “good fortune” in having met generous employers and friends — a friend loaned her S$4,000 when she could not make ends meet, while an employer shepherded her through the administrative jungle after her husband had a stroke and needed to be placed in a nursing home.

“All the forms, processes (for means-testing and subsidies), they helped me. And the staff at CGH ... helped me find the most affordable place,” she said.

“Without this kind of support, I wouldn’t know what to do.”