INTERESTING: Tun Juhar (centre) taking a close look at the stress balls presented by SOS. Looking on are SOS president Christine Vanhouten (second left), secretary Eva Susan (left), vice president Datuk William Chan (second right) and exco member Abdul Ghani Datuk Fadzil.
KOTA KINABALU: If everything goes well, heart patients in Sabah may get a transit home soon where they can stay before and after heart operations. Revealing this, the president of the Society of Sabah Heart Fund (SOS) Datuk Christine Vanhouten, said they are looking for a piece of land to build the transit home.
“Heart patients from outstation who are going for or underwent operations in Kuala Lumpur can stay in this home on transit before their departure to Kuala Lumpur or back home,” she said.
Christine disclosed this after paying a courtesy call on the Head of State Tun Datuk Seri Panglima Juhar Datuk Haji Mahiruddin at the State Istana yesterday.
She was accompanied by five other executive committee members.
Christine said the Head of State was informed of the need to have a plot of land to build the transit home, besides briefing him on the annual activities and introducing the new exco members of SOS.
Since inception in 1981, she said SOS had helped to finance 568 patients to undergo corrective heart surgeries.
“Most of them are children below 12 with hole-in-the-heart problems and we have helped them to go for corrective surgeries in Kuala Lumpur, Singapore and even Korea. We have sent 98 patients to Korea so far,” she said.
She said the cost of corrective heart surgery had increased multifold from RM18,000 in 1981 to RM45,000 at present and appealed to the public to donate generously to the Heart Fund so that children with heart problems and who cannot afford it, can benefit from the fund.
“For this year we have budgeted for 37 patients, out of which 17 will go to Kuala Lumpur and Penang and the remaining 20 will go to Korea,” Christine added.