There's plenty to say about Heng Swee Keat, Singapore's likely next Prime Minister and successor to PM Lee Hsien Loong, Emeritus Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong and the late Lee Kuan Yew.

He's done so much in his public sector career thus far, and even now, has held and continues to hold many key appointments in government and political office.

Amidst all this buzz, though, questions regarding his health have also surfaced — some of which have wondered if Heng is physically up to the weightiest job in Singapore.

And of course, these concerns relate to the fateful afternoon of May 12, 2016, when the Finance Minister suffered a sudden and very serious stroke and collapsed to the ground.

A shock, & a matter of life and death

Luckily, not one but three doctors were present in the cabinet meeting at that time — namely Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen, Foreign Affairs Minister Vivian Balakrishnan and Minister of State for Comms and Education Janil Puthucheary.

It turned out to be a ruptured brain aneurysm.

The three doctor-political office holders attended to Heng before he was rushed to Tan Tock Seng Hospital for emergency treatment, where he slipped into a coma and would wake up again only six days later.

According to The Straits Times, the first thing he said (wrote, actually, as he had a breathing tube down his windpipe and couldn't speak) after regaining consciousness was "Is there a Cabinet meeting today? Where are the papers?"

The fact that Heng even had a stroke was a surprise to his doctors too — after all, he reportedly exercised regularly and never had high blood pressure, a sign of a person who is at risk of stroke.

A remarkable recovery

His recovery was nothing less than remarkable, though — hemorrhagic strokes (like the one Heng suffered) leave most of their victims with permanent damage. In fact, only 60 per cent of people who get hit by hemorrhagic strokes even survive.

Heng, however, spent just six weeks in the hospital and was back at work by August that year.

Here he was thanking his doctors and team of dedicated nurses when he was discharged:

And apart from a loss of weight, there was pretty much zero sign that he even suffered from a stroke.

Heng's stroke was very rare too — hemorrhagic strokes are uncommon enough (20 per cent of all strokes), but those caused by brain aneurysm ruptures make up just six per cent.

So these were a lot of odds Heng overcame to emerge from his stroke the way he did.

Addressed personal health during leadership transition press conference

Since then, Heng continued to work as usual and hasn't shown signs of slowing down, but his stroke inevitably resulted in a lot of speculation and concern among the public, though.

Early on, he was identified to be one of the frontrunners from among the 4G leadership, and there were murmurs of concern that his health scare would affect his chances in advancing further as a leader.

During the press conference held at the PAP's headquarters on Nov. 23, though, Heng addressed the topic head-on, assuring everyone that he is more than ready and able to take on his new responsibilities.

"I've made a very good recovery, the doctors have given me a clean bill of health. In fact, my latest medical check-up, my results are even better than before. I have lost a bit of weight, because I'm fitter now, spending more time in my exercise, so I would not have taken up this appointment if I do not have the confidence that my health allows me to do it.

I've consulted my doctors, I look at my medical reports, I've consulted the doctor's medical reports as well as knowing my own energy level. So I took this up after thinking about it very very seriously, and in particular making sure that my health allows me to do that.

Now this episode, this life and death episode for me, I think strengthens my commitment to serve Singaporeans.... because I, personally and my family feel the care and support that so many people, so many Singaporeans gave to me, including people from different religious groups — I have so many religious leaders and religious groups who said they prayed for me and I'm really very grateful and I feel that I should do my very best to serve Singaporeans to make sure that what we have achieved in Singapore can continue and in fact we build on that."

But of course, Heng isn't the only one whose health came under scrutiny.

Let's not forget that Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has survived cancer twice (intermediate grade malignant lymphoma in 1992 and prostate cancer in 2015).

That lump on his arm has also been the subject of discussion online before, despite him having had it for many years.

There was also that fainting episode PM Lee had during his National Day Rally, mere weeks after Heng returned to work:

That being said, Heng seems more than certain and confident of pushing forward with his new position — certainly, too, that of being our nation's leader in the coming years.

Other stories about Heng Swee Keat

Top photo by Joshua Lee

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