Mum left early, dad stayed longest, daughter showed no symptoms
By
Carolyn Quek
FATHER'S Day was extra special for Mr Ramlee Yahya this year - that was when he was finally discharged from the Communicable Disease Centre (CDC).
The 53-year-old had spent nine days there, being fed medicine, having his saliva swabbed and temperature tested. His wife and youngest daughter were down with the Influenza A (H1N1) virus too, but had been given a clean bill of health and discharged several days earlier.
The family's first stop on Sunday night: a Beach Road Muslim food stall for Mr Ramlee's favourite sup tulang. 'We wanted to treat him to his favourite dish because he spent so many days in the CDC,' said youngest daughter Ida Imelda Ramlee, 16.
All three had gone to Melbourne, Australia, for a relative's wedding, but on June 12, three days after they got home, symptoms started showing.
By then, Mr Ramlee had returned to work in the freight company where he is a daily-rated driver. Ida went to school twice for remedial lessons and had been hanging out with her friends after school. Also at their Bedok Reservoir home were his two older daughters, both nurses.
But the family feared that something might be amiss when they heard that two other relatives at the Melbourne wedding were down with the H1N1 flu. That was when they decided to call 993. The ambulance whisked the family to the CDC for tests. The three who had been to Melbourne tested positive for H1N1. The two daughters who had stayed home tested negative, and were told to remain on seven days' home quarantine.
Four of Mr Ramlee's colleagues had to be quarantined. About 50 of Ida's schoolmates at Bedok North Secondary School were ordered to do the same.
What she remembered of her time in CDC was keeping in close contact with her parents, relatives and friends through phone calls, catching up on her reading and watching television. Loved ones rallied around the trio, taking them toiletries and snacks as they had gone to the CDC empty-handed.
Madam Mascellawati was the first discharged, four days after she was admitted. Her highest temperature reading was 38.4 deg C, and she said she did not feel any worse than when she had the normal flu. Ida left hospital a day later, but Mr Ramlee had to stay on. Madam Mascellawati wanted to know why his Tamiflu medication had been stopped, and nurses explained that he could take it for only five days. After that, it was left to his body resistance to fight the rest of the battle.
Mr Ramlee is eager to return to work on Wednesday, having already lost $900 in wages. Then there was the $1,000 hospital bill the family had to pay, something that took them by surprise. They were charged C-class ward rates, as well as for daily treatment fees, laboratory tests and medication, based on bills they showed The Straits Times.
Read the full story in Wednesday's edition of The Straits Times
