When his 18-year-old son met with a road accident in the United States in 1983 and went into a coma, American doctors advised Dr Tan (not his real name) to 'let your son go'.

After all, the young man had permanent brain damage and could survive only as a human vegetable, they said.

As a medical doctor, he knew what that meant. But as a father, he could not bring himself to pull the plug.

'As a doctor, I knew he had only a 4 per cent chance to live and even if he were to survive, he would be a vegetable. But this is my son. I couldn't let him die,' said the senior practitioner, who looks to be in his 70s and spoke on condition that his identity not be revealed.

His son went on to live for 18 more years, paralysed and often needing help from machines.

He died from pneumonia in 2000 at the age of 36.

Dr Tan and his wife have three other children - two sons and a daughter.

The 18 years the couple spent caring for their son were not easy.

They first had to fly him home from the US, where he had been studying. Dr Tan booked five seats at the tail end of the plane and hired a doctor and an intensive care unit nurse to accompany his son on the long trip.

Once in Singapore, the teenager spent 11 months in an intensive care unit at a hospital.

One day, during an occupational therapy session, he woke up from his coma.

Said Dr Tan: 'It came as a surprise to many. Before that, everyone thought I was talking to a dead person.'

Although he was conscious after that, he remained paralysed for the rest of his life. He could neither move nor speak.

Once his condition stabilised, the family took him home. The maid's room downstairs was converted into a fully equipped intensive care unit.

His wife cared for their son with the help of two maids. Each day, she fed him via a tube, sucked out the phlegm from his throat and cleared his bodily waste. She nursed him so well that in the 18 years, he never had a bed sore.

Even then, he had health complications, including seven attacks of aspiration pneumonia when saliva got into his lungs. He died from this in 2000.

Said Dr Tan: 'The 18 years caring for him involved a lot of money and sacrifice for my wife and me. But we have no regrets. We did it out of love for him.'

Dr Tan is strongly against euthanasia, saying that the real reason people choose to pull the plug on their relatives is to save money.

A day in an intensive care unit costs about $2,000.

He said: 'There is a Confucian saying which goes 'By the bedside of the chronic sick, there is no filial son'. Sadly, this is what's happening in Singapore now. Nobody wants to take care of their sick family members. So they choose the short-cut method of letting them die.'

Nur Dianah Suhaimi

We did it out of love

'The 18 years caring for him involved a lot of money and sacrifice for my wife and me. But we have no regrets. We did it out of love for him.'
DR TAN (not his real name), on why he refused to pull the plug on his son, who went into a coma after a road accident in 1983

This story was first published in thesundaytimes on Nov 23, 2008.