Stressed Over a Disputed Workplace Injury Claim, a Singapore Woman Discharged Herself from IMH — and Was Dead the Next Day

Warning: This article contains references to suicide.

A coroner’s inquiry that opened in Singapore on Thursday has laid bare the final weeks of a 44-year-old food business owner whose life unravelled under the combined weight of clinical depression, a suicide attempt, and a workplace injury compensation claim she believed was being used to defraud her. She was found dead at the foot of a housing block in the Bukit Timah area on the morning of July 19, 2025, one day after she discharged herself from the Institute of Mental Health against medical advice.

The inquiry, which carries a gag order protecting the identities of her husband, her children, and her address, heard testimony from the investigation officer, Inspector Ong Hui Xian, who reconstructed the woman’s final hours with methodical precision. A resident in the block had shared a lift with her that morning; the woman said she was visiting, wished the resident a good day, and was later found dead. A car key belonging to her husband allowed police to identify her. A suicide note was subsequently recovered from her laptop.

The trajectory toward that morning had been building for months. As early as late June 2025, the woman had presented at Ng Teng Fong General Hospital’s psychiatric department exhibiting symptoms of major depressive disorder — loss of appetite, disrupted sleep, intrusive thoughts, a persistent depressed mood. She spoke of guilt, and of feeling torn between the demands of running a business and the responsibilities of motherhood. She was prescribed mirtazapine for her depression and zolpidem for insomnia, and sent home.

She did not stabilise.

In the early hours of July 18, paramedics and police found her at Changi Beach, drunk, unconscious, incoherent, and drenched. She told officers she wanted to die and that she had been scammed of money, though she did not elaborate. A police officer contacted the IMH crisis hotline and was advised to invoke the Mental Health (Care and Treatment) Act given her intoxicated state. She was conveyed to Changi General Hospital, where clinicians assessed that she had made a serious suicide attempt and confirmed a diagnosis of depression. She was subsequently transferred to IMH, where major depressive disorder was formalised as the clinical diagnosis.

What followed is the detail that will likely draw the most scrutiny as the inquiry proceeds. On the same day she was transferred, the woman and her husband indicated they were keen on her discharge. The medical team, Inspector Ong testified, informed both of them explicitly of the risks — worsening symptoms and the possibility of suicide — before agreeing to release her into her husband’s care. He told the court that she appeared quiet but otherwise normal after coming home. She was dead within twenty-four hours.

The institutional dimension of her distress is no less significant. Investigations revealed that a foreign worker who had been employed at her company had purportedly sustained injuries on the job and had been forwarding medical bills to the woman. More pressingly, the worker had sent a letter indicating an intention to file a claim for total permanent incapacity — a category of compensation that carries substantially higher financial exposure than standard workplace injury claims. The woman believed she was being exploited for additional compensation beyond what her insurer had already been covering, and she was anxious that she had not purchased the correct insurance plan and that the total permanent incapacity claim might therefore fall outside her coverage.

Her husband had tried to reassure her. The insurer, he told her, was already handling some of the hospital bills. But the reassurance did not hold. Three days before her death, she emailed an officer at the Ministry of Manpower seeking clarification on whether she was obligated to pay new bills being sent to her. The MOM officer directed her to pass the information to the insurer directly, as the case was under assessment. That officer described her as calm and composed in that exchange — a characterisation that sits uneasily alongside everything else the court heard.

Inspector Ong confirmed that both the police and MOM had investigated the issues surrounding the allegedly fraudulent workplace injury claim, but stated that those findings did not bear on the conclusions regarding the woman’s death. When members of the media asked State Counsel Dhiraj G Chainani whether any conclusion had been reached on the fraud question, he declined to comment. The coroner’s findings will be delivered at a later date.

The hearing was not without its human ruptures. At one point, the woman’s husband broke down in court, apologising and explaining that photographs in the case documents had overwhelmed him.

If you or someone you know is struggling, help is available around the clock. The National Mental Health Helpline can be reached at 1771. The Samaritans of Singapore Hotline operates at 1767. The Singapore Association for Mental Health Helpline is available at 1800 283 7019. International helplines are also accessible online. If someone is in immediate danger, call emergency medical services.