Man suffers cardiac arrest during holiday meant to celebrate wife’s cancer remission; daughter turns to crowdfunding

Photo: give.asia
Photo: give.asia

Fate has been especially cruel to 25-year-old Eileen Cheong and her family lately. Currently, her family is struggling with mounting hospitalization bills induced by her father’s sudden cardiac arrest in Japan, where they were having a holiday.

The thing is, the family trip was meant to celebrate the cancer remission of Eileen’s mother, who had been diagnosed with stage 4 ovarian and stage 1 breast cancer. After surgeries were carried out to remove her mum’s breast and womb, as well as intensive chemotherapy, the cancer went into remission — and Eileen’s dad had suggested that they celebrate with a trip to the family’s favourite holiday destination.

Alas, tragedy befell the Cheong family once again when they arrived — the father went into cardiac arrest shortly after arriving in Tokyo. He has since been placed on life support in the intensive care unit of Toho Medical University Omori Hospital, and has remained unconscious throughout.

Eileen points out that there were no signs that the cardiac arrest would happen, and the family had taken all precautions ahead of the trip. Though her father had been diagnosed with heart failure back in 2012, an implanted cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) was inserted to prevent sudden cardiac death, while subsequent checkups had certified the man fit for travel.

‘Out of options’

Eileen (second from left) with her father (leftmost) and her mother (second from right) Photo: give.asia

The financial situation for Eileen is understandably dire. Her dad’s travel insurers stated that it was unlikely that he could claim compensation as his collapse was “attributable to a pre-existing heart condition”. In other words, the family was on their own, with no help at all.

With no guarantee of payment to the hospital, the family was informed that they had to make upfront payment in cash for the (still rising) hospital bill — 10% on the day that they leave the hospital, and the remaining 90% within the subsequent week.

As of now, it’s been one week into the father’s stay in ICU, and the family already owes the hospital approximately SGD120,000.

“While my father’s life hangs on the line on foreign soil, we have no idea if and when we will be able to bring him home,” Eileen writes in her crowdfunding campaign — a last resort after exhausting all her resources.

“His medical team’s current opinion is that he is unlikely to ever recover from this, and even in the unlikely event that he does, his QOL will be severely diminished. In short, he could be alive and yet not living.”

Photo: give.asia screengrab

The goal of her campaign is to help raise funds to arrange for a medical evacuation (which will apparently cost another SGD120,000) to bring her father back to Singapore, where they could at least receive subsidised healthcare and emotional support.

Eileen’s financial woes is exacerbated by the fact that she’ll also have to shoulder the responsibility of taking care of her mother, who remains at high risk of relapse due to the aggressive nature of her cancer.

“Should my worst nightmares become a reality, there is simply no way I will be able to support both my parents, physically as their caregiver and financially.”

Her pleas however have been heard. Funds are quickly coming in, with over SGD26,000 raised as of writing.

SGD250,000, however, is required to cover the cost of her dad’s medical bills in Japan, as well as the air ambulance transfer. You too can help Eileen any way you can on her Give.Asia page. Godspeed you, Cheong family.



Reader Interactions

Leave A Reply


BECOME A COCO+ MEMBER

Support local news and join a community of like-minded
“Coconauts” across Southeast Asia and Hong Kong.

Join Now
Coconuts TV
Our latest and greatest original videos
Subscribe on