'He's like a father to us': Late doctor paid for education of maid, her daughter — they now work at his clinic

• Dr Raymond Yuen is believed to be the first doctor here to die of Covid-19
• His former domestic worker said he paid for her to take courses to improve her work prospects
• He also paid for her daughter’s studies in Singapore when the family took her in
• Both mother and daughter, and the daughter’s husband, now work at his clinic
• She said she does not know who will take over the clinic now

SINGAPORE — The former domestic worker of the late Dr Raymond Yuen, who died after being sickened by Covid-19, still cannot believe he is gone and told of how the doctor paid for her to attend courses back in 2007 that later allowed her to be certified to work at his clinic.

He and his family also welcomed the Sri Lankan worker’s 10-year-old daughter to Singapore in 2005 and paid for the girl’s studies from primary school until she completed her GCE N-Levels. She went on to become a registered nurse at Tan Tock Seng Hospital. 

The daughter, now 27 and a Singapore citizen, and her husband, a permanent resident, as well as her mother, Madam Kariyakaranage Sujeewa Manu Thilankani, all work in Yuen’s clinic, Hosanna Medical Centre, which is located at Block 51 Circuit Road in MacPherson.

Yuen, 65, who owned the clinic, was the only doctor there. After his death, the doctor’s patients and friends told of his good deeds and his caring ways. 

In an interview with TODAY on Thursday (Oct 14), Mdm Sujeewa, 51, now a clinic executive and permanent resident, said that she first came to Singapore in 1999 as a domestic worker, before meeting Yuen in 2003. He was her fifth employer here.

She was mentioned in an article in The Straits Times in 2005 on Yuen's efforts to help her family after the devastating 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, and continues to speak fondly now of the man who had been instrumental in improving their lives.

“They are a very, very nice family. They told me... ‘You need to study and build up your future and we will help you’. I also thought it would be better for me so I listened to them.”

Yuen paid for Mdm Sujeewa to undergo two healthcare courses in 2007 and 2008, and she obtained an Institute of Technical Education Skills Certificate in Health Care (Outpatient) and one for a Pharmacy Assistant Course by NTUC LearningHub.

“Once I completed my first course, he found another one (for me) to take so that it would give me better chances to be able to work in this clinic,” she said.

Seeing that it was difficult for Mdm Sujeewa to juggle studying and taking care of the household at the same time, Yuen hired another domestic worker to assist her with the household chores to enable her to have more time to “study and learn”.

Mdm Sujeewa then obtained an S pass, an employment pass given by the authorities to mid-level workers, and began working full time at Yuen’s clinic, where she has been ever since.

Yuen, a general practitioner (GP) and family physician for more than 30 years, died last Saturday. He is survived by his wife and daughter, and believed to be the first doctor here to die of the disease.

After he was infected, Mdm Sujeewa also tested positive for Covid-19 and is still recovering at home.

Her daughter and her two grandchildren have also since tested positive. Her three-week-old grandson and five-year-old granddaughter are both warded at KK Women's and Children's Hospital.

AFTERMATH OF TSUNAMI

Mdm Sujeewa said when the deadly tsunami that occurred on Dec 26 in 2004 struck Sri Lanka, it wiped out her home, forcing her family to seek refuge in a temple.

That was about a year after she started working for the doctor and his family.

“Every day during that time, I would cry. His wife is also very helpful and she asked me what I wanted to do. They gave me money to send to my family to rent a house there.

“She told me to bring my daughter to Singapore just for holiday because they wanted to make me happy. They could see I was so sad thinking about her,” Mdm Sujeewa recalled.

What began as a holiday in January 2005 for the then 10-year-old daughter Shalika Gunaratne soon turned into an extended stay when Yuen managed to enrol the girl into Canossa Catholic Primary School and helped her obtain a student’s pass with the authorities.

Yuen’s wife would wake up early in the mornings to help Mdm Sujeewa’s daughter with learning English and schoolwork. Eventually, they enrolled her into a daycare centre at her school so that she would be able to get further coaching to catch up with schoolwork. 

Yuen paid for the girl’s school fees until she obtained her N-Level certificate. Thereafter, she studied nursing and later started working as a nurse.

Now married, the daughter lives with her husband and their two children in a four-room flat directly above the clinic. The flat is rented by the doctor.

Mdm Sujeewa and a niece live in a condominium in the eastern part of Singapore. She said that Yuen and his family bought it for her, though it is not in her name.

In 2012, Mdm Sujeewa’s husband also came to Singapore to find work.

Yuen paid for him to undergo a professional Swedish massage course so that he could work at a Traditional Chinese Medicine clinic.

However, as his “mind and heart” were in Sri Lanka, he did not complete the course and returned home, Mdm Sujeewa said.

LAST CONVERSATION

The past few days have been particularly hard for Mdm Sujeewa, who is still coming to terms with Yuen’s death.

“I don’t know what’s happening. My mind is very messy already… Thank God I’ve not gone crazy. I don’t know how. We are very clean, very careful. Everywhere we go, we wash hands, wear masks… I’m really not sure from where (we caught the virus),” she said.

“Everywhere we go, we use TraceTogether (for contact tracing) but I never received any message that I’ve been exposed to Covid.”

She said that Yuen was the first to contract the virus last Monday. She tested positive last Friday.

“Last Tuesday, he went to a GP to take some medicine and he started to quarantine at home. On Wednesday, I went to hang some food at his door but he didn’t eat because he didn’t have an appetite. On Thursday, I dropped off some juices and I think he drank only one. He was very tired,” Mdm Sujeewa added.

Yuen owned two houses and since he was infected with Covid-19, he had been alone at one of the houses, which is a five-minute drive from the clinic.

Last Thursday, Mdm Sujeewa video-called him, not knowing it would be their last conversation.

“When I was talking to him, I felt he was very confused. He seemed to have forgotten some things. So I asked him, ‘Sir, do you remember my handphone number?’, because he called me every day. He gave me a landline number.

“I asked him again, ‘Sir, I asked for my handphone number’, but still he said a landline number.”

She told this to her daughter and Yuen’s daughter, who then called him.

“She also didn’t understand what he was saying, that's why she called the ambulance,” Mdm Sujeewa said.

Mdm Sujeewa, her niece as well as Yuen’s wife and daughter showed up at the house and caught a glimpse of him being taken into an ambulance. “He didn’t say anything,” Mdm Sujeewa said.

That same day, he was moved to an intensive care unit because his oxygen levels were low and he remained there until he died at around 5am on Oct 9, she said.

“I am very, very sad… He’s like our father. He treated us like his family, not like workers. He built us up like our own father.

“Before him, I have had a few employers but I have never, never seen anyone like him before.

“This is so sudden… He disappeared like this. I still cannot believe it. Sometimes, I’m thinking, is this a dream or true? He was a very healthy person, he didn’t anyhow take medicine, anyhow eat food.”

At the time of his death, Yuen was partially vaccinated against Covid-19 with a non-messenger ribonucleic acid vaccine and had no known medical conditions.

Mdm Sujeewa, who is fully vaccinated, said that she did not know why Yuen did not get immunised sooner. 

When asked about the future of the clinic, she said: “It depends on God. We pray now to find a good doctor.”