[ad_1]
SINGAPORE – A 26-year-old Indonesian maid died after she was found lying at the foot of an apartment block near the Hougang MRT station on Monday (March 29).
Police said they received a call for assistance at Block 464 Upper Serangoon Road at 4.53 pm.
The woman was unconscious when she was taken to hospital, where she later died.
The Singapore Civil Defense Force said it took a person to Sengkang General Hospital.
Police is on the case.
A neighbor who lived on the same floor, who declined to be identified, told The Straits Times that the Indonesian was believed to have been employed by an elderly woman who is generally in a wheelchair.
The neighbor added that the maid had told her about her two children.
[[nid:520125]]The elderly employer, who wanted to be known only as Madame Chen, told Chinese night newspaper Shin Min Daily News that her children had hired the maid to take care of her about six months ago.
She said she had heard the maid cry for her twice on Monday. But when Madam Chen came to the kitchen with her walking stick, the woman was nowhere to be seen. It was neither in the warehouse nor in the bathroom.
Madame Chen’s children told Shin Min that they would contact the maid’s agency to arrange her funeral arrangements and also the embassy to have her body flown back to Indonesia.
Another Indonesian maid told the Chinese newspaper Lianhe Wanbao that she received a text message from the woman, who was her friend, telling her that she felt dizzy and had a headache, at 4.41pm on Monday.
With tears in her eyes, she told Wanbao that she did not see the message and only learned of the incident after seeing the police downstairs.
ST understands that a window in the apartment was open and that the maid may have fallen while cleaning it.
In June 2012, the Ministry of Labor (MOM) announced that employers of foreign domestic workers cannot let them clean the exterior of windows unless strict safety conditions are met.
An employer or adult representative must be present to supervise the foreign domestic worker. Window grills must be installed and locked at all times during cleaning.
The rule came after five foreign domestic workers died after unsafe window cleaning between January and June 2012.
ST has contacted MOM for comment.
This article was first published in The times of the strait.
