By Chok Sim Yee
Farmer’s son gets fourth chance for heart surgery
KOTA KINABALU: As the saying goes, the third time is the charm. However, it took Victor Petrus Dusong four attempts to send his son for a corrective heart surgery needed to treat the child’s congenital heart disease.
Victor, 46, who works as a farmer and lorry driver in Keningau, said the family first applied to The Society for The Sabah Heart Fund (SOSHF) last year to get his two-year-old boy, Eduardo Victor, to undergo the surgery.
“We were supposed to fly to Kuala Lumpur last year for the corrective heart surgery but our house was burnt down,” he said.
When the second chance came around, the parents of five were busy with their children’s schooling.
“As we were supposed to leave for Korea for the surgery around April or June last year, my wife’s and son’s passports somehow got lost,” he lamented.
This time around, the parents are finally getting their youngest child the treatment he required.
Eduardo is one of the seven children sent to Korea yesterday by the SOSHF to undergo corrective heart surgery.
Victor said he first noticed something was not quite right when the sound of his son’s cry seemed weak.
The parents then brought their son to the Keningau Hospital where Eduardo stayed for around three months before he was diagnosed with congenital heart disease.
Since then, Eduardo has had to visit the hospital, either in Keningau or Kota Kinabalu, for review four times a month.
“The hospital reviews incur a cost of about RM20 in Keningau, but up to RM300 per trip if we have to travel to Kota Kinabalu as we need to pay for food and accommodation,” he noted.
Nonetheless, Victor hoped that his son would get better soon with the corrective heart surgery.
“We were told that my son could stay in Korea for two to three weeks, or less if he gets well soon,” he said.
Meanwhile, Nurhaida binti Jaroni, 38, from Lahad Datu said two of her eight children were born with congenital heart disease.
“My fourth child Mazlan, now 13 years old, was sent to Korea for corrective heart surgery by the SOSHF back in 2015,” she said.
Now it was her youngest child, three-yearold Muhammad Farhan bin Abdul Usri’s turn to undergo the surgery.
Nurhaida, whose husband is self-employed, said Mazlan has gotten better after having the surgery.
“He is now a naughty boy, though he still goes for review every six months,” she said.
The seven children who flew to Korea for corrective heart surgery yesterday were Muhammad Farhan; Eduardo; Ahmad Aizul Azzem, nine, from Papar; Allwinnder Jessy, five, from Tamparuli; Maxwell Owen Peter, two, from Kota Marudu; Chrishowell Alfredo Christopher, five, from Lokawi; and Muhd Azim Abdullah, four, from Tuaran.
SOSHF honorary secretary Datuk Eva Susau said the free medical treatment to Korea was a joint collaboration between the Society with the Women and Children Hospital in Likas, Korean Food for The Hungry International (Korea) and Sabah government through the Ministry of Social Welfare.
“The main sponsor is the Seong-An Heart Foundation and some Korean NGOs (nongovernmental organisations) while the Sejong General Hospital is the partnering hospital.
“All patients are escorted by either one of the parents. The youngest patient in the group is Eduardo Victor,” she said when seeing the patients off at the Kota Kinabalu International Airport (KKIA) here yesterday.
To date, SOSHF has sponsored and sent 638 children for corrective heart surgeries since its inception in 1981 and the number of patients sponsored under the ‘Free Medical Operation’ programme to Korea amounted to 138 since 2007.
Eva further noted that this was the first time in over 10 years that the society used the national carrier, Malaysia Airlines, to fly the heart patients for surgery.
“The reason is that it is a cheaper alternative in terms of airfare cost although it is not so convenient compared to flying directly from Kota Kinabalu to Incheon, Seoul, Korea.
“Furthermore, all the Korean budget airlines now do not want to fly our patients even though we have been using Asiana Airlines and Air Seoul all these years since they have ceased operations to Kota Kinabalu now,” she pointed out.