An Indonesian domestic helper who fractured her spine when she fell from a third-floor window while cleaning says she has been abandoned by her employer. Cindy Elita, 21, said her recruitment agency informed her as she lay in hospital last week that her Yuen Long employer had terminated her contract after the January 14 accident. She says she has been left homeless and is currently being cared for at a refuge for domestic helpers. Ms Elita, originally from a village in East Java, also says she has not been paid since arriving in Hong Kong on November 1 and does not know how her medical bills will be paid. Investigations are under way at both the Labour Department and the Indonesian Consulate-General, which said the employer bore responsibility for the care of Ms Elita. It is illegal for employers to sack staff because of a work-related injury. Ms Elita slipped from a third-floor ledge while cleaning windows in her employer's six-bedroom flat in Yuen Long. She was taken unconscious to Tuen Mun Hospital, where she was diagnosed with a fractured vertebra. She said her employers visited her twice during her hospital stay. Of their second visit, she said: 'My employers told me that they were angry, saying that I cannot work properly because I had fallen, even though I was only cleaning windows.' On January 29, she was visited by two members of her recruitment firm who told her she had been sacked. She was discharged on Wednesday and taken by ambulance to the Bethune House refuge in Jordan. She cannot walk, stand or even sit. Doctors have told the maid that if the fractures do not heal she will need to undergo surgery. Ms Elita claimed that when doctors phoned her employers to collect her from hospital, they said she was no longer their responsibility. However, the employer told the South China Morning Post that Ms Elita had been released from hospital without her knowledge and that she had filed a missing person report. 'She ran away and we are worried about her,' the employer said, adding that she had visited the maid every day in hospital until February 1 when the family went overseas on holiday. Police said they had received no such report. The Indonesian Consulate-General said it was also investigating and had retrieved the woman's passport and employment contract from the recruitment agency in order to help Ms Elita claim compensation or file a complaint about underpayment. Her employer admitted agreeing to pay Ms Elita only $2,000 a month - compared with the minimum wage of $3,670 - while Ms Elita said the recruitment firm told her that her pay had so far been used to cover its fees. The recruitment agency could not be contacted yesterday. The employer said she had bought insurance for the maid and that the insurance company should compensate her and pay her medical fees. The employer claimed Ms Elita's parents had requested that she be sent home after the accident. The maid agreed that her parents had begged a recruiter in her village to let her go home, a message that was relayed to her by the agency in Hong Kong. But she said she spoke to her parents on Wednesday and was able to convince them that it would be better if she remained in Hong Kong to receive treatment. Eni Lestari, chairman of the Indonesian Migrant Workers' Association which is caring for Ms Elita, said if the group had not been alerted to her plight, she could simply have been deported.
