Logesvaran Nadeson said the sequence of events and communications between the Serdang Hospital in Selangor, where his mother was initially treated, and the health ministry following her death last January had also made him question whether his mother was really a victim of the virus.
Nadeson, 44, who is originally from Selangor but has been residing in Sabah’s Sandakan east coast district since 2007, said he was contemplating legal action against the health authorities if he doesn’t receive a satisfactory explanation in the next seven days.
Speaking at a press conference organised by Sabah DAP here today, he said the hospital told him that his mother, Kolandaiamah Perumal, 71, had died due to complications caused by Covid-19 on Jan 24.
He then communicated with the hospital’s forensics department with regard to funeral arrangements.
The following day, he said he started to monitor the health ministry’s daily official death report on its Facebook page, expecting an update over his mother’s death, but it did not come.
“I then monitored and collected the data from Jan 24 to Feb 22, the case numbers and which hospitals the deaths occurred, among others, and yet there was nothing about my late mother.
“I was expecting to see something like ‘71-year-old woman died at Serdang Hospital’ but there was none during that period,” Nadeson said.
After a month, he said he made attempts to communicate with low- and high-level authorities at the hospital through email and telephone.
On Feb 26, he was told by an officer that the ministry had updated its social media page regarding his mother’s death. An attachment with a photo of the update was also included in the email.
“But I saw two men and three women were reported to have died there but their ages were not included. So, I emailed the officer back for a clarification on which of the women was my mother.
“The officer then replied my email on March 1 stating that my mother was case 1093 and was only reported to them on Feb 25.”
Nadeson said he subsequently made a host of enquiries to the health ministry to find out why it took so long to update his mother’s death in their official list.
“The authorities had previously said the figures or data are not manipulated and updated daily, but why did it take 32 days in my mother’s case?
“How long does it take for information regarding deaths to pass from the hospitals to the state health department before it finally reaches the ministry for the data to be updated?”
He said his mother was initially admitted to Serdang Hospital’s intensive care unit (ICU) on Jan 13 for pneumonia. She was later discharged on Jan 18, with her Covid-19 swab test negative.
But Nadeson received a call from the hospital the following day, telling him to collect the home surveillance pink tag from them after his mother was suspected of being a close contact of a Covid-19 patient while in the ICU.
“I went to the hospital and asked whether there was a rule to screen patients for the virus first before they were admitted to the ICU. They had no answers for me,” he said.
He added his mother was re-admitted to the hospital’s emergency zone on Jan 21. Following confirmation that she had the virus, she was admitted to the Covid-19 ICU on Jan 23.
“All these have increased my doubts over the accuracy and transparency of the health ministry’s data. I have lost my mother who was my backbone … I can’t accept her death under these circumstances.
“Everything happened in the blink of an eye. I need an honest explanation from the health authorities within seven days. I don’t want this to happen to others.”
Sabah DAP secretary Chan Foong Hin said Nadeson, and the people in general, have the right to know from the health ministry what really happened.
“It is absurd to take so long to update the data. How transparent are these data?” asked the Kota Kinabalu MP.
Sabah DAP Youth chief Phoong Jin Zhe said this was not a witch-hunt involving the health ministry.
“We mean no disrespect to the frontliners and health authorities who have contributed a lot to the fight against the pandemic. We only want to know the mechanism behind the updating of death records.”
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