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HEALTH CARE IN THE FIFTIES: PART 1
Reflections of Tun Dr Mahathir and Tun Dr Siti Hasmah

O Mimi MMed (Fam Med)
Klinik Kesihatan Kelana Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia
AH Zailinawati FRACGP, FAFPM
Klinik Keluarga, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Address for correspondence: Dr Mimi Omar, Pakar Perubatan Keluarga, Klinik Kesihatan Kelana Jaya, Lot 38294, Jalan SS 6/3A, 47301 Kelana Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia. Email: drmimiomar@gmail.com

Mimi O, Zailinawati AH. Health care in the fifties: Part 1. Reflections of Tun Dr Mahathir and Tun Dr Siti Hasmah.  Malaysian Family Physician. 2007;2(1):38-40

As Malaysians celebrate fifty years of nationhood, it is timely to reflect on this country’s achievements. We have indeed made astounding progress in our healthcare delivery system, if we bother to ask those who have lived through the fifties! In the following pages, we share with you snippets of health care in the 1950’s – as seen through the eyes of our veteran medical colleagues.

The Future Prime Minister
Yang Amat Berbahagia Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad knew very early on that he must have a university degree to achieve a credible status in society and to make himself heard. As a keen observer of his community, he was acutely aware of the difficulties faced by the rural Malays. When he was a teenager in Alor Star, he observed that almost all the shops in this town were owned by Chinese or Indian traders; in fact, there was only one-and-a-half Malay shop selling brassware and religious books!  Protests against the Malayan Union were unheeded as he was just a schoolboy.

The hardship that he and his family faced during the Japanese occupation further steeled his resolve to help the Malays improve their economic status. His family had to rent out part of their house to a kacang putih man (hawker selling an assortment of fried nuts and peas coated with sugar) because ‘we didn’t have any money’. Being an avid reader, he was aghast to learn that the kacang putih man tore pages from the books in his house and used them as wrapper! He attended a secondary school set up by the Japanese but left the school soon after as he felt there was nothing to be gained by being in the school. However the Japanese lessons must have been well learnt within that short period as he could still understand a smattering of the language.

His ability to run small businesses profitably did not deflect his true ambition, and in 1947 he was offered a place at the King Edward VII Medical College in Singapore. Anatomy class was particularly dreaded as he was terrified of cadavers and even contemplated giving up medicine. Fortunately, true to his nature, he decided to face this fear head on. He reasoned that if the girls could dissect, so could he. He remembered university life as very enjoyable. As a junior, he had to spend a night under a senior’s bed as part of the university’s ragging rituals. The senior had no inkling at the time that the future Prime Minister of Malaysia was lying under his bed! He had a knack of grasping scientific principles and was able to explain them in simpler terms, a talent that is evident in his speeches in later years. As such, he was much sought after by his weaker classmates, one of whom later became his life partner.

He was awarded $25 per month from the bursary but the amount was later reduced to $10 because he received $15 from home. Since food and accommodation was free, the amount was enough for him to buy toiletries and an occasional visit to the cinema which costs 50 cents for a third class seat ticket. He supplemented his pocket money by writing to The Straits Times under the pseudonym ‘C.H.E. Det’ and succeeded in getting his articles printed in the middle page of the newspaper. The articles were of diverse topics but the dominant theme was on the plight of the Malays. He received $20-$40 per article and was such a prolific writer that he was even offered to be a journalist for the newspaper.

Graduating in 1953, he was one of six housemen posted to Penang General Hospital, then a well equipped hospital with modern facilities. Surgical call was for a stretch of one week and he had to handle many accident cases. He would manage the cases himself as much as possible without calling the medical officer-on-call. A houseman’s salary was $401, one (Malayan) dollar above the mandatory Employer Provident Fund contribution limit. A posting in his home town followed before he was transferred to Langkawi Island, his last posting as a bachelor. In those times, urgent cases from Langkawi need to endure four hours of boat ride followed by another six hours by land before reaching Alor Star General Hospital. The rigorous surgical training in Penang proved valuable as he was confident enough to operate on many cases that would not have survived the ten hours journey to Alor Star. Once he had to operate on a patient with strangulated hernia right on the outpatient couch while a hospital assistant administered ethyl chloride gas! Tuberculosis patients from the mainland were sent to recuperate in Langkawi which was reputed for its clean air. Wealthier patients, however, preferred to recuperate in Brastagi, a hill resort in Indonesia.