Children’s Wish Society fulfills a child’s wish

0

KOTA KINABALU: All he wanted was a game console to ease the boredom of a long stay at the Likas Hospital.

Mohd Hanif Jani, seven, who has suffered from leukemia for almost a year now, was waiting for his parents to save up enough money to get him a Sony PSP player.

But as fate would have it, the boy’s father Jani Turaja was killed in a car accident while on the way from Tawau to the city on Sept 29.

On Monday, the Children’s Wish Society of Malaysia (CWS) stepped in after getting a call from Likas Hospital paediatric oncologist Dr Ong Eng Joe about Mohd Hanif who is now in the intensive care unit.

CWS board member Jaswinder Kaur and member Susan Pudin handed over the game console to the boy’s mother, Josefina Aloh @ Norsabrina, as Mohd Hanif was asleep during the visit.

Josefina had to hold back tears as she recalled how her husband, an imam who also worked as a labourer in an oil palm plantation, was saving up to buy their son a Sony PSP player.

“Mohd Hanif kept on asking us to get him the game player after he saw some other children at the ward occupying their time with one.”

“We only had a few hundred ringgit so we asked him to wait. And then, my husband died on his way here to see our son. And our youngest child, Norzahirah is now paralysed following the impact of the accident,” she said.

Norzahirah, five, is at another ward at the same hospital, and is being taken care of by a relative as Josefina has to be by Mohd Hanif’s bedside. Josefina has another daughter aged 10, and a son who is now finishing university.

Josefina, 39, was overcome with emotion as she glanced at Mohd Hanif, speaking of how he was once an active and intelligent child.

“He was always so active and suddenly became ill two weeks after finishing kindergarten in Merotai. During his graduation, he was a bit pale and moody.”

“It happened so fast. By December, he was admitted to hospital and has had to go through chemotherapy. He was all right but now he’s had a relapse,” she said.

Josefina then pulled out a photo of Mohd Hanif receiving his “scroll,” asking CWS to take the photo and not that of him lying in the hospital bed.

During the short visit, she kept on wiping away tears and said she would accept as fate whatever happens next.

This is the first wish CWS fulfilled after receiving a donation of RM5,000 from KFC Sabah a week ago.

The donation that was handed over by QSR Brands Bhd and KFC Holdings (Malaysia) Bhd chairman Tan Sri Muhammad Ali Hashim, is meant to be distributed among children in Sabah.