Woman's eyelid torment

By Dong Qian  |   2008-12-20  |     NEWSPAPER EDITION

A MOUSE attacked an elderly woman suffering from Alhzeimer's disease and bit a chunk out of her eyelid while she was sleeping at a Shanghai mental health clinic.

Now her relatives are demanding the center pays for plastic surgery for her.

The patient, surnamed Qi, who is in her eighties, had both her eyelids bitten by a mouse on November 6 when she was asleep. The mouse tore a chunk the size of a fingernail from her left one. Doctors operated but with several stitches in her lid, the woman cannot now properly shut her eye.

"It will be terrible for the family if she can't close her eyes when she dies," Qi's son-in-law, surnamed Gu, said. In Chinese culture, if a person dies without closing their eyes, it means they were suffering from a grievance or has everlasting regret. "Qi was once a Chinese opera actress and the family cannot accept her disfigurement," Gu added.

The Qingpu District Health Center has expressed regret over the incident but feared surgery would do more harm than good.