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Ieyasu Tokugawa
Guest
Tuesday November 9, 2010
Future looks bleak for teen with AIDS
KUALA LUMPUR: Fourteen-year old Helmi longs to go to school, play football with his friends and become a scientist. But his future looks bleak because of a mistake by a hospital in Segamat. Helmi was given tainted blood by the hospital 11 years ago after being admitted for jaundice, which resulted in him becoming HIV positive. His father Kamarul, 49, who is disabled, said the past eleven years had been a nightmare for the family.
Moral support: Mohd Khairun hugging Helmi at the press conference yesterday.
Kamarul, father of two children, who works as a road sweeper with the Seremban municipality, said the hospital finally paid the family RM100,000 in damages five years ago. “At first, the hospital refused to take responsibility, but even when they did, we were not given a fair compensation.
“We were represented by a lawyer who swindled a large sum of the settlement,” he said, adding that they had been travelling from Segamat to Hospital Kuala Lumpur every month for medical appointments until they shifted to Seremban a year ago. Helmi has now been diagnosed with AIDS and has not been to school for the past month. “I don’t want my friends to find out about my illness. I am hoping to go back to school,” said Helmi at a press conference organised by the Umno Public Complaints Bureau yesterday.
Umno Youth community and complaints bureau head Datuk Mohd Khairun Aseh said they would do all they could to assist the family. “I will meet the Federal Territories and Urban Well-Being Ministry to request that the family be provided with a low-cost home, so that they will be closer to the hospital,” he said. To make a contribution to Helmi’s family, contact the Umno Public Complaints Bureau at 03-6207 8706.
