In the wake of a loved one’s passing, it is often said that one learns to live with the love left behind. As Chiew Gee is comforted by her late mother’s love, she looks back at the care and support her mother received during her final months at St Luke’s Hospital, which truly made a difference.
She describes the late Madam Goh Lock Wah as a kind, gentle, and easy-going lady; most unwilling to burden anyone unnecessarily. For someone so used to giving without expecting anything in return, Madam Goh had a difficult time accepting her breast cancer diagnosis—a terminal illness that was malignant and severe. “I asked her why she had waited so long before sounding the alarm, and in typical fashion, she said she didn’t want to disrupt the family’s holiday plans that year,” Chiew Gee recalled with a painful smile.
After several rounds of treatments and hospitalisation, Madam Goh was admitted to St Luke’s Hospital for palliative care. Even in her sickness, she worried about her husband’s health and how her condition made everyone busier, like the volunteer who had been portering her while in bed to the chapel for weekly devotion sessions.
Till this day, Chiew Gee remains thankful to the care team for their dedication to getting to know her mother and father better and considering their needs. She appreciated the medical team, led by Registrar Dr Rachel Lu and Senior Medical Officer Dr Joy Pelaez, for involving her mother and family in treatment decisions as far as possible, and the nurses and therapists for treating her mother with much patience and gentleness.
She thought back on how her mother and father would open their hearts to Chaplain Esther Goh and how her mother shared in confidence many feelings and worries she did not wish to burden the family with. Chiew Gee also reflected on the tireless support Medical Social Worker Leong Si Jie provided to their family along the way.
“We saw the many ways the care team treated patients respectfully and allowed them to live their last days with dignity, from taking my bed-ridden mother for a short walk in the garden on the ground floor to serving her blended food in delicate moulds. I am thankful we were able to journey with our mother with such support in her last days,” shared Chiew Gee.
