KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 3 — The family of the late Lahad Datu Hospital pathologist, Dr Tay Tien Yaa, has engaged legal representation to investigate the circumstances of her August 29 death from suicide.
Dr Tien Yaa’s younger brother, Tay Yong Shen, 31, said the family discovered WhatsApp messages of Dr Tien Yaa complaining about her workload and treatment since early August.
“We cannot imagine how much she had to do in just one month. We heard she worked from around 8 am until 11 pm, [sometimes] midnight, or even 1 am. I think these working hours are very long for doctors,” Yong Shen said during a press conference led by MCA Public Services and Complaints Department head Michael Chong last Tuesday.
“After her transfer to Sabah, she had hoped to return to Peninsular Malaysia after two years,” he added.
Dr Tien Yaa, who died in her 30s, was head of the Chemical Pathology Unit under the Pathology Department at Lahad Datu Hospital, a district government hospital in Sabah, from February 19 this year, after marrying in September 2023.
In a Facebook post on September 14, which went viral, Yong Shen blamed his sister’s death on workplace bullying after the UD52 chemical pathologist was found dead in her rental unit on August 29.
Yong Shen and his mother, Lim Siang Heyeo, 64, were accompanied by lawyer Dhanaraj Vasudevan, managing partner of Kamil Hashim Raj and Lim (KHRL) Advocates and Solicitors and an executive member of the Inns of Court Malaysia.
Dhanaraj said: “We’re acting for the family in this very sad situation. We’re going through the evidence now, and we’re still accumulating more as they’ve just finished the bereavement period.
“We won’t leave any stone unturned. We will work with the ministry, police departments, and authorities to get to the bottom of this. A young specialist taking her life like this is a very sad state of affairs. This should not happen, not only in the medical field, but in any profession.
“Let me tell you that whoever may be responsible for this young woman’s miserable death, we will act by the book, and the rule of law will take effect. We will [hold all parties accountable], and we will sue.”
Chong revealed that new evidence exists, but cannot be disclosed yet.
He said MCA’s lawyers, Ivan Tan Kai Yong and Victor Teoh, would collaborate with the family’s legal team to investigate the circumstances surrounding Dr Tien Yaa’s death.
Tan said: “We hope the government will conduct an investigation as soon as possible and bring justice to Dr Tay (Tien Yaa). We also hope the government will set aside more allocations to develop a mechanism to assess doctors’ mental health at major hospitals nationwide.
“There should be a direct channel to lodge complaints directly with the Health Minister and the Health director-general so that our medical workers can work to serve the people in a safe environment.”
Yesterday, Health Minister Dzulkefly Ahmad announced the formation of an independent task force, effective October 10, to investigate Dr Tay’s death within three months. Its terms of reference include identifying bullying at Lahad Datu Hospital and its pathology department, as well as bullying overall in health care facilities in the Ministry of Health (MOH).
It is unclear how the special investigation will now proceed, given Dr Tay’s family’s possible plans for litigation, especially since the investigation team, headed by former Public Service director-general Borhan Dollah, comprises former high-ranked civil servants.
The previous Healthcare Work Culture Improvement Task Force (HWCITF) under then-Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin, which investigated the death of a Penang Hospital houseman, had done its work without public threats of litigation from the junior doctor’s family.
In a separate case, Khairy had said in November 2021 that the government would only publish the independent committee’s report on the 2016 fire disaster at Sultanah Aminah Johor Bahru Hospital, which killed six patients, once lawsuits by the victims’ family are settled. Until today, the MOH has yet to publish the report by the committee headed by former Court of Appeal judge Mohd Hishamudin Yunus.
