Hui Yi trying to talk

KUALA LUMPUR: Heart transplant patient Tee Hui Yi cannot speak well with a tube in her mouth so she communicates by writing on a whiteboard.

“Sometimes she tries to remove the tube but we stop her. So she writes on a whiteboard. She tells us that she is in pain,” said her mother Dina Bato Sam Bua at the National Heart Institute (IJN) yesterday.

MCA president Datuk Seri Ong Ka Ting, who visited the 14-year-old girl, handed a Thank You card and a copy of his open letter of gratitude published in The Star yesterday to the 34-member IJN team that carried out Hui Yi’s double heart transplant.

Recovering: Hui Yi receiving visitors at IJN yesterday. They are (from right) Dr Fong, Dr Chua, Ong, Wong Sek Hin and Wendy Ong. With them are Tee and Dina Bato.

He commended the team, led by chief cardiothoracic surgeon Datuk Dr Mohd Azahari Yakub, for their commitment and excellence.

Together with his wife Datin Seri Wendy Ong, Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr Chua Soi Lek and wife Datin Seri Wong Sek Hin, and Human Resources Minister Datuk Seri Dr Fong Chan Onn and his wife Datin Seri Tan Lay Hwa, they visited Hui Yi at the intensive care unit.

Ong encouraged her to be strong and told her that Malaysians were praying for her recovery.

He later presented a fruit hamper and a teddy bear to Hui Yi’s parents.

“Do not worry,” he assured Dina Bato and her husband Tee Ah Soon. “The IJN team is very professional. They are giving their best to your daughter.

“The people are very concerned. We are praying for her,” he said.

IJN’s Heart Lung Transplant Programme director Mohamed Ezani Md Taib told pressmen that Hui Yi would be taken off the respiratory machine today.

He said Hui Yi, who now weighs 33kg, would be in intensive care for two weeks to avoid infection but doctors would not want her be in there longer than necessary.

Last Thursday, Hui Yi underwent surgery to implant a heart from a 15-year-old boy in Sitiawan who was declared brain dead following a road mishap. Soon after, Hui Yi’s body began to reject the organ.

On Friday, a second heart was brought in from Johor Baru, donated by the parents of a 20-year-old mechanic who was also killed in a road accident.

The IJN surgical team scrambled into action again and performed a second heart transplant on Hui Yi.