Lee Wei Ling, daughter of Lee Kuan Yew, dies aged 69

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SINGAPORE: Dr Lee Wei Ling, the daughter of Singapore's founding prime minister Lee Kuan Yew, died on Wednesday (Oct 9). She was 69.

Her death was announced by her brother, Mr Lee Hsien Yang, in a Facebook post shortly before 6am on Wednesday.

He said Dr Lee died at home. She was known to live at 38 Oxley Road, the family home of Mr Lee Kuan Yew, who died in 2015. 

Dr Lee was also the sister of Senior Minister Lee Hsien Loong.

"I will deeply miss Ling. May she rest in peace," said Mr Lee in a post on Facebook.

Describing her as "fiercely loyal to friends", Mr Lee remembered her as someone who "sympathised instinctively with the underdog, and would mobilise actively to do something when she saw unfairness, or suspected wrongdoing".

Dr Lee herself was aware of this quality. During a fundraising event in 2003 for a shelter for troubled teenage girls, Dr Lee, then 48, said she had always fought for the underdog.

She knew she had a privileged childhood. "I had maids and drivers but we were brought up to know how to be poor," said Dr Lee in a 2003 TODAY article.

"We turned off the tap so that water was not wasted, we walked out of a room and the lights and fan were off. You don't waste water, you don't waste electricity."

Mr Lee Hsien Loong also noted her academic prowess and how she was "thoroughly bored in class" and got a double promotion from Primary One to Primary Three. Dr Lee was eventually awarded the President's Scholarship and became the director of Singapore's National Neuroscience Institute.

Dr Lee loved animals and initially had ambitions of becoming a veterinarian. Dissuaded by her parents, she took up medicine instead, topping her class at the University of Singapore (now the National University of Singapore), noted Mr Lee.

She became a paediatric neurologist, specialising in epilepsy.

"She brought to medicine the same intensity and commitment she did to everything, and developed close bonds with her patients, many of whom she treated over many years," said Mr Lee.

For a time, she was a regular columnist for The Sunday Times, writing about her personal life and on topics such as society and religion, Mr Lee noted. Her columns were compiled into a book, A Hakka Woman's Singapore Stories: My life as a daughter, doctor and diehard Singaporean.

Mr Lee also remembered an episode when he was 13 when his father told him that he was to take care of his mother and younger siblings should anything happen to the elder Mr Lee.

"Sadly, after he (Mr Lee Kuan Yew) passed away in 2015, a shadow fell between my siblings and me, and I was unable to fulfil his wish," said Mr Lee Hsien Loong.

"But I held nothing against Ling, and continued to do whatever I could to ensure her welfare."

Dr Lee revealed in 2020 that she had progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP). She described the brain disease as a "Parkinson’s-like illness that slows physical movements, impairs fast eye movements and balance", eventually resulting in death.

"She took it with her usual fortitude and stoicism, and posted about it as one of those things in life to be borne and endured," wrote Mr Lee Hsien Loong. "She knew what it meant, and made the most of the time she had even as her health declined."

In his Facebook post, Mr Lee Hsien Yang cited Dr Lee in her eulogy for their father: "I can't break down (and cry), I am a Hakka woman."

"Ling, I am less stoic than you," Mr Lee Hsien Yang added.

He asked that donations be made in lieu of flowers to charities that he said would be meaningful to Dr Lee - Canossa Mission Singapore, Parkinson Society Singapore and Total Well-Being SG Limited.

Details of funeral wake arrangements will be made known in due course, he added.

Editor's note: An earlier version of this article said Dr Lee was Lee Kuan Yew's youngest child. That is incorrect. We apologise for the error.