GEORGE TOWN, May 30 — A fun outing to a shopping complex for a family turned into a nightmare when the head of the family, William Oon Yeow Loon, collapsed from a stroke and was left half-paralysed.

Oon, 35, was the sole breadwinner of his family of four, including two young daughters, but his condition has left his family with no fixed source of income except to depend on handouts and donations.

Oon, who can barely walk, had to undergo treatment and physiotherapy three times a week at the Penang Hospital while his wife, Loh Bee Lean, 26, had to quit her part-time waitressing job to care for him and their two children, a six-year-old and two-year-old.

"He collapsed on October 7 last year and after rushing him to the Penang Hospital, he underwent an operation but he is now paralysed on his left side,” Loh said.

She said since Oon’s illness, the family did not have any permanent income except for the few hundred ringgit she earned cleaning houses a few times a week and folding joss paper for a temple.

She said they barely had enough to pay for food each month but in the last few months, they were fortunate enough to receive donations and food items from a church and non-governmental organisation, Tzu Chi Foundation. 

"Tzu Chi was giving us RM1,000 each month from January to March but has since stopped and now, we are in dire need of money to pay for another operation for my husband and our daily expenses,” she said.

Oon is scheduled for another brain surgery next month at the Penang Hospital which will cost them about RM500.

Loh said she is at her wits end trying to earn enough to pay for food and household bills each month.

"We need at least RM1,000 to pay for our monthly expenses for four of us,” she said.

The expenses also included transportation costs of taking her husband to the hospital three times a week and her children’s nursery fees.

She said she had no choice but to appeal for donations from the public to get them through these next few months pending her application to Socso for reimbursement of expenses.

Batu Lanchang assemblyman Ong Ah Teong, who visited Oon and Loh today said he would assist the family to apply to Socso and the state government’s Agenda Ekonomi Saksama (AES) programme.

"While waiting for approvals from these programmes, they still need some funds to get by. This is why I am highlighting their plight to get public donations for them first,” he said.

The family currently lives in a small wooden kampung house along Jalan Slim that Oon’s family has been living in for a few generations.

"We have applied for public housing because this house gets flooded all the time but our application is still pending,” Loh said. 

She said they are not asking for much, only enough for the family to survive at least for the rest of this year while her husband recuperates from the stroke.

"We don’t know how long it will take for him to fully recover and go back to work but we hope it is soon,” she said.