http://newpaper.asia1.com.sg/news/st...59990,00.html?
Maid with secret mental history breaks down after 3months here
She dances in public, dashes across road with baby
By Tay Shi'an
March 24, 2008
THE first sign that something was amiss with their otherwise perfect maid was when she started behaving erratically at night.
Screaming and crying: Screen captures of the video taken of the maid after she had a mental breakdown, before she was sent to IMH.
What followed were other disturbing signs.
The maid began talking to herself. She couldn't sleep. She danced and flailed about in public, accidentally hitting some pedestrians and commuters.
And then she made a blind dash across North Bridge Road with their one-year-old baby boy in the pram.
When the Singapore couple realised their domestic helper was having a mental breakdown, they sent her to the Institute of Mental Health (IMH), where it took eight staff members to restrain her as she hit and kicked violently.
It was only then that the couple found out from a nurse, who called the maid's family in the Philippines, that she had previously been warded in a mental hospital there.
The maid, 26, was discharged from IMH and sent back to the Philippines last week. She had been with them for three months.
The experience left Mr Bonny Yau, 43, a civil servant, and his wife, Madam Li Shu Qin, 31, a teacher at a childcare centre, badly shaken.
It was the first time they had hired a maid and, not only was it a frightful experience that jeopardised their baby Jovann's life, they have also been saddled with the maid's medical bills.
Their question now should be on the minds of many Singapore maid employers: How can you be sure that the maid you are taking home is mentally healthy?
Was the maid agency's checks on the maid's health adequate and thorough? And why should employers be made to foot the maid's medical bill when she had already had a history of mental illness?
Madam Li grapples with the same questions. She asked: 'How did she pass her medical check-up? If she already had problems in the Philippines, how can they make us responsible?'
The maid agency, Budget Employment Service Centre at Thomson Imperial Court, said the maid had passed her medical exam by a Singapore doctor.
It maintained that as everything was done according to existing guidelines, the family should be responsible for the medical bills.
On her medical record, the maid had also declared that she had no history of mental illness.
In the full medical report given to the Yaus, it showed she had cleared the medical exam as well, which consisted mostly of physical tests and an interview with the maid.
We are not naming the maid because of her fragile state of mind.
Recalling the first time they met the maid, Mr Yau said: 'She looked presentable and smart, and her eyes looked alive, bright and normal.'
Madam Li said: 'She was so loving. She would hug the baby and kiss him. She treated Jovann like her own child.'
They showed us several pictures of the maid carrying the baby and smiling happily during family outings to Sentosa, Chinatown, and various shopping malls.
Sometimes though, the couple would notice that the maid would have mood swings - very happy one minute, then silent the next - but they thought that was normal.
Madam Li said that from the first day the maid started working, she had a habit of taking pills.
The maid, when asked about it, said the pills were vitamins for her low blood pressure.
The couple said they did not make it an issue because she was a good maid.
Madam Li said the problems began when the maid ran out of the pills at the end of February.
SHAKEN: Mr Yau's laptop showing a photo of the maid with baby Jovann in happier times. Now, Mr Yau and his wife (background) don't dare to hire another maid. Picture: Kua Chee Siong
'She couldn't sleep for several days. She would toss and turn, get up to go toilet, drink water, pull the blanket very hard and fast, or apply medicated oil.'
Madam Li, the maid and the baby slept in the same room of their five-room flat.
Her husband sleeps in the master bedroom because he works shifts.
WAKES UP BABY AT NIGHT
The maid also kept waking the sleeping baby several times at night to feed him, against the couple's instructions. Once, she got careless and spilled water on the baby and the bed.
Mr Yau said: 'She also started swinging the baby very high and very hard when carrying him. So I got worried and didn't allow her to open the windows.'
On 3 Mar, when Madam Li decided to have the maid's health checked at a clinic, the doctor found her blood pressure had hit 150.
Madam Li said: 'It was very high, and she had always told us that she had low blood pressure.'
The doctor prescribed mild sleeping pills to the maid. But she still couldn't sleep, and started talking to herself the next day.
Worried, the Yaus both took urgent leave to take the maid shopping, thinking it might help her relax.
But they were wrong.
On the MRT, the maid kept talking to herself and started waving her hands about, hitting some commuters.
Then, when they were at the old Capitol cinema, the maid, who was pushing the pram with Jovann in it, suddenly dashed across the road towards St Andrew's Cathedral without looking.
Luckily, there were no cars at that time, but she did bump into some pedestrians.
Mr Yau said: 'She was going so fast that the whole pram was shaking, like the wheels cannot take it already. Everybody was staring at her.'
Madam Li recalled: 'I was so scared! We took over the pram and told her, 'Don't go so fast'. But she didn't respond at all. When you talked to her, she couldn't even answer any questions.'
That evening, the couple took the maid back to the agency, and she was taken to a maid hostel.
The next day, the couple got a call from the agency asking them to send the maid to a hospital immediately.
SHOUTING WHOLE NIGHT
Madam Li said: 'They said she spent the whole night shouting, until all the other maids couldn't sleep.'
When Mr Yau reached the agency, he was shocked to see the maid shouting incoherently, making faces and waving her arms and legs about.
He recorded the maid using his PDA and showed the clip to The New Paper on Sunday.
He said: 'The transformation was so fast. It was very pitiful.'
Mr Yau said that the maid started to struggle inside the ambulance.
'When we reached IMH, she became violent and started to use her arms and legs to hit and kick.
'Then eight people - five men and three women - came quickly. They caught her and restrained her to the bed, and pushed her into a consultationroom.'
The maid stayed in hospital until 10 Mar.
Madam Li said: 'When I saw her like that, I cried. After all, she was with us for three months, and she loved our son, so we had developed feelings for her.'
Madam Li said that when she went to IMH the day the maid was discharged, she heard from a nurse that the hospital had called the maid's sister in the Philippines and discovered she had been in a mental hospital there for three weeks early last year due to marital problems.
Then, when she met the maid, Madam Li said that she appeared alert and even asked if she could continue working.
Madam Li told her she had better return to the Philippines to rest, but the maid asked: 'Madam, if you don't want, can you transfer to me another employer?'
The maid returned to the Philippines last week.
The Yaus have since contacted the maid agency to ask them to reimburse the medical bills.
Mr Yau said he paid about $1,080, including the cost of the IMH stay, ambulance and clinic fees.
He had also paid about $350 in maid agency fees and $2,100 for the maid's loan.
He said the maid agency had offered a replacement maid for them at no charge, but the couple declined.
Mr Yau's mother is now helping to take care of Jovann.
I'VE RUN OUT OF PILLS MA'AM, I CAN'T SLEEP 
Re: I'VE RUN OUT OF PILLS MA'AM, I CAN'T SLEEP 
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