My mum thrown into a nursing home - why we need the IPCMC

This is a true story. My mother is a government pensioner, with multiple medical problems and loss of memory. In 2017, my brother from London returned to Malaysia, 20 years after being unsuccessful in his attempts to make it there.

Since her illness, I, the second son in my family and being a medical doctor, had been taking care of my mother and also my brother who has minor brain damage due to an operation in childhood.

As my two other siblings were overseas, one an aeronautical engineer in Qatar and this jobless guy from London, the responsibility to take care of my mother and my youngest brother fell on me.

I employed a live-in maid for my mother and a driver at her disposal while I and my wife run a busy general practitioner practice in the periphery of Kuala Lumpur. We visit her regularly during the weekends in Cheras.

My mother is very fond of my three sons as they remind her of us, her three children when we were children. On return and seeing that my mother was demented, my brother from London made his moves to secure her belongings which were in my possession.

He wanted her bank ATM card, her car and her jewellery. He wanted to sell both her houses claiming that my youngest brother was critically ill and needed an urgent operation.

When I refused to give my mum's belongings to him, he forcefully took my disabled brother and assisted him to make a report against me and my mother's driver (whom he suspected would be reporting his moves to me and my elder brother) to the police, saying that I had beaten both of them had not given my mother and him (my youngest brother) the best care in taking care of them.

The police at the Kajang district police headquarters believed the report and swiftly remanded my driver. The police then threatened me that I could be remanded the next day and the investigating officer advised me to give the items my brother was demanding so that she could close the case. “Dia pun anak juga, dia ada hak,“ she told me.

Being under pressure from my family and also from the driver's family, I discussed with my lawyer, and we decided to give the ATM card, jewellery and car to him as requested.

I did not want this drama to compromise my mother's needs, the hospital appointments for her and that of my youngest brother as well who is also on medication.

My brother did not retract the report after I gave him my mother's belongings on the advice of the police. The case was still under investigation six months later. Under investigation, but I was not called to give any evidence and neither were they.

It was only when I brought the case to the notice of higher authorities in Bukit Aman did things start moving. Then the police said there was no evidence to the report and they classified it as 'No Further Action'. However, the police were reluctant to charge my brother for making a false reporting, neither were they in any way helpful in returning the care of my mother and brother back to me.

Someone told me that the Enforcement Agency Integrity Commission (EAIC) in the Prime Minister's Dept could help my mother so I wrote to the EAIC and they investigated for 13 months (anyone in trouble could have died and been cremated by then).

Finally, they sent me a letter stating that the police did no wrong and had followed their SOP so "case closed".

A report made by a man, a slow learner with brain damage and registered with the Welfare Department, coached in the police station by his brother who just returned from London, with no evidence, no medical report of injury or whatsoever was accepted by the police as the truth.

A person was then remanded and made to spend 48 hrs in the lock-up only to be told six months later that it was a false report and the "case closed". And the EAIC says police SOP was followed.

Now, 18 months later today as I write this letter, my mother has been put by my brother in a nursing home and on checking with HUKM, she has not been brought to the hospital for the past 14 months for her check-ups.

I thank the police for their diligent investigations which caused a pensioner to end up in a nursing home with no house, no driver, no maid, no hospital check-ups and now no pension money as well.

Thank you PDRM but we need the IPCMC. - Mkini