The hospitals in Malaysia are at full capacity and doctors are trying to do what they can to treat Covid-19 patients that are warded. Scarily, a Malaysian man’s post on Instagram showed exactly how overstuffed our hospitals are. In an Instagram post shared on August 17, 2021, Jeremy shared his experience when both of his parents were infected by Covid-19.
On July 16, his mother received her first dose of the vaccine while being accompanied by her husband. She started showing signs of fever two days later but the family chalked it up as a side effect of the vaccine.
When her fever persisted, the family thought maybe she just took longer to recover from the side effects. However, Jeremy’s father decided that they should both get tested with a Rapid Test Kit (RTK) just to be safe..
His mum’s RTK result came back positive. They also went to get a PCR (Polymerase chain reaction) test for confirmation and received the results the next day. Unfortunately, both his parents, his grandmother, uncle, sister and himself tested positive.
“Everyone in the house quarantined and distanced themselves from one another and slept in different areas of the house. Symptoms such as fever, cough, flu, intense migraines, headaches, and the loss of smell and taste were showing,“ he wrote.His father’s vaccination appointment was a few days after the whole family tested positive so he had to skip his vaccinaTwo weeks after his mother showed signs of fever, her blood oxygen level (SpO2) began to fall. A healthy person’s SpO2 should be between 95 and 99 but his mum’s SpO2 measured between the 70s and 80s. Worryingly, his dad’s SpO2 measured similarly. They instructed him to bring them to a hospital that night.
“I drove them to the nearest private hospital and described to them the whole [situation], stating that both my parents had shortness of breath and had to be admitted immediately,“ Jeremy wrote.
The doctors, without checking on his parents who were in critical condition, told Jeremy to bring them elsewhere because they were full. Jeremy called up more than 10 hospitals in the Klang Valley and found that some hospitals had waiting lists up to over 80 to 100 people. Despite their critical situation, no hospitals would accept his parents.“My parents then decided to go home and try to make it through the night,” Jeremy added.
The next morning (August 1), his dad called him around 10am to go to their room. His mother’s SpO2 dropped between 58 and 60, while his father coughed a small amount of blood. His father had already called the ambulance but it took them an hour to arrive.
His parents were admitted to a government hospital in Klang. His mum was admitted as a Stage 4 patient and was given a bed and ward. His dad was considered a Stage 3 patient and was only given a wheelchair to sleep on because the hospital was full.
While the rest of the family recovered, Jeremy’s father has been sleeping on the wheelchair for four days and did not rest well. Jeremy’s mother’s condition improved and his aunt asked his dad if he wanted to be transferred to a private hospital. His dad refused and wanted his wife to be transferred first due to her critical condition before he would agree to a transfer.
On August 5, Jeremy’s dad told him that he was feeling better but in the following days, his father’s condition deteriorated. According to the doctors, his dad not only suffered from Covid-19 pneumonia but other infections he obtained while he was waiting for a bed in the emergency department.
“The doctors [had] neglected his need for medical attention. CT (computerised tomography) scans were still not scheduled for,” Jeremy wrote in the post.
Jeremy was told to prepare for the worst because his father’s condition wasn’t severe enough to be prioritised for a CT scan.
On August 10, he received good news that his mother would be discharged and he arrived at the hospital at 6.45pm. When he walked to his mother’s ward at 7pm, he was directed to collect medicines for his mother from a floor below.
Around 7.23pm, he made a quick prayer in the lift for his father, who was on the first floor of the same building, to recover faster after collecting the medicines. The moment he stood in front of his mother’s ward (around 7.26pm), the hospital called to say his dad had passed a minute earlier.
At the end of his Instagram post, he wrote, “I lost a good man that day and until this day can’t accept how sudden everything was.”
In a separate post, Jeremy reminisces about his father greatly and called him his “idol, my best friend, my #1 supporter.”
“You will be missed fondly by your family, especially by your comical personality, charming, and friendly persona. God has taken you away from me peacefully on 10 August and words cannot describe how much I miss you and [am] grieving for you right now,“ he wrote. Jeremy also recalled all the road trips they went together and wished that he could see his dad grow old.
The Sun
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