Negri Sembilan MCA chief Dr Yeow Chai Thiam is dissatisfied with Serdang MP Teo Nie Ching's failure to show him gratitude for helping her sick mother in 2009.

According to reports in Chinese dailies yesterday, Yeow had issued a statement on Sunday saying Teo had only thanked him a few months after the treatment, after he inquired about her mother's health when they met by chance at a function.

NONE Yeow said that, had he failed to ask about her mother, Teo would likely forget that MCA had extended help to her family.

He said he was not asking for a debt of gratitude to be paid, but to point out the fact that MCA had helped Teo's mother through a life-threatening period, and she should accept this.

He was responding to a statement by Teo last Saturday that she had thanked him several times for his help and that he should not use her mother for political mileage.

At a function last Thursday, Yeow, a senator and medical doctor who runs a non-profit dialysis centre in Mawar, mentioned in passing that his aide had once helped Teo's mother.

He said this when attacking Negri Sembilan DAP chief Anthony Loke, claiming that Loke draws a salary of more than RM20,000 a month as both an MP and state assemblyperson, but did not help those in need.

Yeow said many local issues were solved by MCA activists, and not by DAP, including helping those with health problems.

Defending his speech, Yeow said in his statement that it was appropriate to mention the incident involving Teo's mother because he was encouraging party grassroots to help all, regardless of their political affiliations.

Yeow had also accused Teo of not being a filial daughter, failing to personally help her mother at the time and leaving the matter in the hands of her uncle.

"Teo should be more caring towards the elderly, especially when it involves her own mother. As an elected representative, she should be a good example to society," he said.

‘Yeow is hard to satisfy'

Yesterday, Teo posted a message on her Facebook page condemning Yeow for suggesting that she was not filial and an ingrate.

She said she had thanked Yeow many times before and three times in front of a crowd of 1,500 people at a DAP function in Bahau, Negri Sembilan, last Thursday and yet he was still using her mother for political purposes.

NONE Teo recalled that she had personally thanked Yeow's assistant upon her mother's arrival at the National Heart Institute (IJN) and asked him to convey her gratitude to her boss.

Her uncle had personally thanked Yeow later, while she did the same at a function last year when she bumped into him.

"I regret that my gratitude cannot satisfy Yeow. When I help my constituents, I never ask, or expect them, to personally thank me.

"I must clarify that I was also not able to thank every doctor or medical caregiver who treated my mother.

"Does Yeow need me and my mother to send a fruit basket to his door? Does my family have to take up an advertisement in the newspapers and send him a plaque before he is satisfied?" she asked.

Teo said that, on learning about her mother's condition, she arranged for her to be admitted at the Serdang Hospital, but her uncle had insisted that her mother be sent to IJN and contacted Yeow as a friend for an opinion.

According to Teo, her uncle was acquainted with Yeow because he had once contributed to Yeow's dialysis centre.

On the way from Batu Pahat to IJN, her uncle and mother dropped by Yeow's medical centre in Seremban on the latter's invitation, from where the aide joined them on their journey to Kuala Lumpur.

Teo said Yeow's decision to publicly question a family decision on her mother's hospital admission and to attack DAP and Loke in connection with it had also put her uncle in a difficult position.

"Sadly, Yeow does not care about friends when it comes to scoring political points," she lamented.