If you had read the New Paper on Sunday, you'd have read this article.....


Jurong family survives on only ONE meal a day
April 17, 2005
-By Zubaidah Nazeer

HE was in unusually high spirits that February morning last year, when he left home to spend the last working day with his employer. Service technician Kassim, 38, had got another job which would pay him a few hundred more than the $1,700 a month he was earning.(We cannot use his real name because of a pending legal suit.)

He was relishing a dream holiday with his wife and four children and that cherished pilgrimage to Mecca.But fate intervened to dash his hopes. The motorcycle he was on was involved in a collision with a car. The impact sent Mr Kassim flying and left him with severe head injuries.

Today, he is bedridden and depends on his wife, Siti, (not her real name), 35, a housewife, to keep the family together.Other than her three boys and one girl, aged from 8 to 14, she has to care for her 79-year-old uncle who lives in their four-room flat.

More than a year has passed since the accident but Mr Kassim is still bedridden. He cannot control his bowel movements and has to use adult diapers. Said Madam Siti: 'Now, every time he needs to go to the toilet to wash up, I have to help him. I also help him bathe and that takes some time'.

Madam Siti recalled that fateful day. 'I had just spoken to him about an hour before that, and he seemed cheerful because it was his last day of work. He had also sms-ed me sweet words earlier, saying he would come home and massage my leg because I had complained of a pain. He is always sweet like that.'

It was a friend who informed her about the accident. Madam Siti collapsed. Her memory after that became a blur. But she remembers being helped onto a wheelchair in hospital, wailing with inconsolable grief as she tried to sign a consent form for her husband to be operated on.

She said of the moment he was wheeled into the ICU of National University Hospital after the operation: 'The only way I could tell it was him was when I saw his goatee. The rest of him was bandaged up. It hit me hard... I felt my whole world was gone.'

Mr Kassim was in a coma for a month. Looking after him and their young children full-time has taken its toll.Her husband has since undergone four major surgeries - two on the brain, and two to insert tubes into his head and chest.

Doctors have told Madam Siti that her husband's cognitive abilities, which include thought and logic, are permanently gone. His right vision is partially damaged. Doctors said he would probably be 'dependent on others, for life'.

He gets numerous seizures. In an attack early this year, he turned bluish and was frothing at the mouth and had to be hospitalised for four months.There are also thrice-weekly visits to Ang Mo Kio Community Hospital for rehabilitation sessions.

On a good day, Kassim utters a few words and breaks into smiles. But he still hardly talks. He can move his hands and legs and can feel pain. Madam Siti says she is grateful that her husband's condition has improved as he can now recognise her, glance at her and mime words.

Despite this, her morning ritual is to greet him, kiss his cheeks and have conversations with him, though he may not look at her or respond. She tries to be cheerful, but is worried about the mounting hospital costs and the family's daily living expenses...................
(This is an excerpt of the article.... read the full article here)

Heart-wrenching right??? Its even more so when you know the people personally like I do. They are clients of my firm and the case will be up for trial at the end of this month at the Supreme Court. I can't divulge much since the matter is an ongoing one but trust me that the reporter only managed to scratch the surface of this family's plight.

The victim (let's call him Kassim like the reporter did) was riding his motorbike when he was flung off upon impact and landed beneath a stationary lorry some 10m away. No one knows exactly what the circumstances of the accident were as Kassim was unconscious immediately after and now can no longer talk much less remember details of the accident. All we have are the car driver's words and circumstantial evidence that do not exactly amount to much. I managed to pay a visit to their place sometime in the beginning of this year as I had to collect certain confidential documents from the wife. (Let's also call her Siti) The one who answered the door was an elderly frail looking old man, presumably the uncle mentioned in the article. He looked like he needed taking care himself. The couple has 4 kids, most in their teenage years and if the situation is hard on the wife, imagine what it must be like for the kids already in their turbulent years. I really hope and I pray that everything goes well during the trial and that at the very least, while no amountof money can lessen the pain nor reverse the accident, the settlement money will help them tide over these difficult times.