Macau | Father of domestic violence victim still considering Health Bureau plan

Macau (MNA) – The father of a domestic violence victim Liu Yeng Ming, who was disfigured after her husband had poured cooking oil and liquid cleaner on her, told reporters that a release issued by the Health Bureau (SS) late on Thursday had been published without the family agreeing to the solution by SS.

In a press conference organised along with legislator Agnes Lam Iok Fong and Juliana Devoy of the director of the Good Shepherd Centre, the father of the victim told reporters that the reason why the family had requested a doctor from the United Kingdom was due the family having consulted with Hong Kong experts who had recommended the doctor in question.

Lam clarified that Hong Kong experts had flown in the expert from the United Kingdom in previous urgent cases and that the expert was also a Hong Kong native and would hence not have face the issue of a language barrier.

The father had not yet decided on the plan proposed by SS, which offered to cover up to MOP80,000 of the hospital expenses from a charity which cannot be revealed by the family, for a procedure that can cost up to MOP640,000, at a hospital in Singapore.

The victim in an image shared on Agnes Lam’s Facebook page

During the press conference, it was revealed that it was yet to be known which hospital and which doctor would be doing the process.

SS has also informed the family that the doctor who was practicing in Singapore is now currently in Malaysia.

However, the father of the affected victim remained open.

On the other hand, the Good Shepherd Centre had gathered donations of up to MOP883,636 as of 10:00am on Friday, and are continuing to raise funds.

Sister Devoy told media that the donation was unlikely to be a one-off. “It is a road of a couple of years for this woman to do this operation.”

Devoy had expressed confidence that more can be raised at the end of the week, which would go towards sending the victim to a hospital in the United Kingdom.

When asked about her view on the SS proposal, legislator Agnes Lam said it was a very good step that the bureau had started to communicate directly with the family.

Before, when they had sent a letter to SS, they had replied with three lines, according to the legislator.

After the SS had read more about the issue in newspapers, they had begun to proactively meet with the family, although the bureau had also cautioned about the family’s intention to send their father to send the daughter for an eye transplant due to health risks found after a thorough discussion by the Board for Overseas Medical Services.

According to the SS, be that the treatment may cause complications, such as refractory glaucoma, severe bacterial infection or need to remove the eyeball and even blindness, with the treatment possibly also causing extreme pain to the patient.

Therefore she was advised by the SS to not undergo this kind of surgery stating that ‘even with the success of the surgery, the patient will not return to normal life’.

However, Ms. Lam said the case was “exceptional” and “urgent”, and the surgery was so the victim could “see her son’s face again.”

According to the legislator, despite undergoing treatment for six months, was blind, could not eat without assistance and could not move one arm.