‘He treated us like his family’: helper grieves loss of Singapore doctor Raymond Yuen who paid for her, child’s studies

Kariyakaranage Sujeewa Manu Thilankani said Yuen, who died of Covid-19, paid for her to attend courses that later allowed her to be certified to work at his clinic

She also recalled the doctor’s efforts to help her family in Sri Lanka after the 2004 tsunami, saying he enroled her child into a school and funded tuition fees

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Sujeewa (left) with Dr Raymond Yuen in Hong Kong in 2019. Photo: Kariyakaranage Sujeewa Manu Thilankani

Published: 11:41am, 15 Oct 2021Updated: 1:48pm, 15 Oct 2021

The former domestic worker of the late Dr Raymond Yuen, who died after being sickened by Covid-19, still cannot believe he is gone and told of how the doctor paid for her to attend courses back in 2007 that later allowed her to be certified to work at his clinic.

He and his family also welcomed the Sri Lankan worker’s 10-year-old daughter to Singapore in 2005 and paid for the girl’s studies from primary school until she completed her GCE N-Levels. She went on to become a registered nurse at Tan Tock Seng Hospital.

The daughter, now 27 and a Singapore citizen, and her husband, a permanent resident, as well as her mother, Kariyakaranage Sujeewa Manu Thilankani, all work in Yuen’s clinic, Hosanna Medical Centre, which is located at Block 51 Circuit Road in MacPherson.

Yuen, 65, who owned the clinic, was the only doctor there. After his death, the doctor’s patients and friends told of his good deeds and his caring ways.

Sujeewa, 51, now a clinic executive and permanent resident, said that she first came to Singapore in 1999 as a domestic worker, before meeting Yuen in 2003. He was her fifth employer in the city state.

She was mentioned in an article in The Straits Times in 2005 on Yuen’s efforts to help her family after the devastating 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, and continues to speak fondly now of the man who had been instrumental in improving their lives.