The Boy Who Was Sent
to London at Ten — and Came
Back to Save Forty Others

Jimmy — before we talk about your work, I want to know you. Tell me about yourself.

I am a survivor of congenital heart disease. I was ten years old. Nobody in Malaysia could help me at the time, so my parents put a notice in the newspaper about my condition. One of the doctors saw that notice. He called my parents. He said — come to the hospital and we will check. After examining me, he said: I can help you. I can arrange a hospital in London. And he made that arrangement through Pantai Bangsar.

So at ten years old, they sent me to London — together with one of the doctors — for one month. I came back. I survived. If not, I would not be here. And that was the beginning of my thinking: I must use my life to help people. Later I joined Rotary Club, and through Rotary, the Gift of Heart Project was born.

And what was your life like before that operation? What could you not do?

Before the operation — I could walk maybe fifty metres. Then I had to stop. Squat down, rest, get up, walk again, stop again. I was ten years old and I could not play football, badminton, anything. No oxygen. I kept fainting at school. Eventually they told my parents: better to focus on his health first before worrying about school. So I missed about four years of education — just going back and forth between home and hospital.

After the operation — everything changed. Immediately after surgery, you could see it. My fingernails, which had been this dark bluish colour, turned pink. My face changed. The colour came back. The doctor knew it was a successful operation from that moment alone.

Today I am sixty years old. I can climb Mount Kinabalu — four thousand metres. I can scuba dive one hundred feet under water. I can run twenty rounds of the stadium without stopping. I go on roller coasters. I live like any normal person. And when I tell parents of newly diagnosed children what my life looks like now, I watch something change in them. They needed to see what was possible.

Did you ever get a chance to ask that doctor why he helped you?

Yes. His name is Dr. Ng — same surname as me, which I think meant something to him. He took care of me for fifty years. He retired at eighty-five, in 2024. At the last check-up he said: next time you follow my son already — his son is also a doctor. And when I asked him why he helped me, he said: at that time, nobody in Malaysia could do this operation. So he arranged it with London. He has a very good heart — he just wanted to help. That is the kind of person he is. And that is what I carry with me: what one person's willingness to help can do for an entire life.

Your daughter also had a congenital heart defect. Tell me about that moment — when you realised your own child had the condition you had survived.

When she was a baby — always drinking milk with difficulty, always breathing hard. We took her to the doctor. He heard something, referred us to IJN — the Institut Jantung Negara. They confirmed it: hole in the heart. She needed surgery. The appointment for the operation was when she was eighteen months old.

After the operation, immediately — you could see the change. The colour in her face, her fingernails, all turned pink and normal. The surgery was successful. But then at eighteen years old, the valve needed replacing. She had the valve changed to an adult one. She survived. She is now thirty-two years old and she is fine.

Seeing my daughter go through this — that was the moment I knew. Some people have the money to help themselves. Some people do not. And that is the reason I formed the foundation. I needed to make sure that the children who could not afford surgery would not be lost because of money alone.

Walk us through what the Gift of Heart Project has actually done.

The project started in 2014 — eleven years ago now. Under Rotary Club Damansara West, we call it the Gift of Heart Project. We have raised approximately half a million ringgit. And we have used that money to fund surgery for forty children — at IJN and at Eagle Hospital. The amount per child varies enormously: some operations cost ten thousand ringgit, some fifteen thousand, some as much as one hundred thousand or more for complex cases. Some children had multiple operations — one child had five surgeries, and we paid for all of them.

We also help refugees and foreign nationals. Not only Malaysian children. If a child in Malaysia needs this operation and they cannot afford it, we try to help regardless of where they come from.

The youngest child we ever funded was five days old. IJN called us — this baby would die without immediate surgery. Our committee decided immediately: go ahead. About two weeks after the operation, I went to the hospital and I held that baby. He was fine. That moment — holding a five-day-old baby who would not have been alive without community action — stays with me.

You go to IJN yourself to sit with the parents of children waiting for surgery. What do they ask you?

Almost always the same questions. After the operation, how do we take care of the child? What can they drink, what can they eat? How soon can they run? How long before they can be normal? And I tell them: about three months after surgery, everything will be safe. The bone heals. The repair holds. And then they can live like any normal person. Like me. When I tell them my story — that I climb mountains, I go underwater, I have lived sixty years — I watch their faces change. That is why I go. Not just to answer questions. To show them what is possible.

One parent from Indonesia attended our event and saw what we were doing. When he returned home, he was inspired to start fundraising there. He has since funded fifty children for heart surgery in Indonesia. That is the ripple effect of community action. Jimmy in Malaysia. Jimmy's version in Indonesia. Hopefully more people in more countries doing the same thing.

You are thinking beyond the surgery fund. Tell me about the bigger long-term vision.

The Gift of Heart Project raises money for surgery — for children who already have the condition. That money goes strictly to the children. But I am working on something else now — a book called The Heart's Journey. The money from this book will go to a separate purpose: funding research toward a vaccine or injection that could prevent congenital heart disease from occurring in the first place.

I cannot develop that science myself. But the scientists who can — in England, in China, wherever the research is advanced enough — they need funding. That is what I want to raise. If we can help create something that prevents children from being born with this condition, we will not need to pay for their surgery, because the surgery will not be necessary. That is the real goal. Not reactive — preventive.

My daughter is thirty-two. She wonders whether her children, if she has them, will have the same condition. The answer is: there is a slightly higher probability given the family history, but it is not inevitable, not even high probability. But if a prevention becomes available — if science can protect those future children — that is worth everything I have left to do.

My final question to you, Jimmy. If you had one wish to make the planet better, what would it be?

I want to see the vaccine come out. In my lifetime, if I can see the vaccine come out — that is my most important wish. My life aim. If I am still around when it happens, that will be enough.

A world with no congenital heart defects for babies. A very noble cause. Thank you so much, Jimmy. Your story is one every Malaysian should hear — and now they will. That is a wrap on Episode Ten of The Centered Edge.