Hee Lian resting at the nursing home in Kuantan, Malaysia. The Star Online/Asia News Network
KUANTAN, Malaysia — The Tengku Ampuan Afzan Hospital (HTAA) here has created medical history with a successful operation on a centenarian, probably the first in Pahang or even the country.
Orthopedic surgeon Dr. V.A. Jacob Abraham performed the surgery on November 14 last year, inserting a plate in the right thigh of a 104-year-old woman, Hee Lian, who had suffered a femur fracture.
The centenarian had fractured the right thigh bone in a fall near her son’s house here and was admitted to the hospital on November 6.
Hee Lian, who was born on August 11, 1910, was discharged on November 21 following the operation, deemed the first ever bold attempt by a government hospital on an elderly patient.
HTAA director Datuk Dr Marlia Mohamed Salleh said Hee Lian was the oldest patient of the hospital to undergo such a successful operation and, possibly, could be the oldest patient in the country as well.
She described the work of the surgical team led by Dr. Jacob as a record for the hospital and said it was a team effort by the surgeon, anesthetist Dr. Hafizah Mohamed, nurses and those involved in post-care treatment and rehabilitation.
The two-hour procedure was a minimal invasive percutaneous plating on the right thigh of Hee Lian, she said, adding that the patient had had a similar fracture on the same leg 10 years ago which required a dynamic hip screw procedure.
Dr. Marlia said Hee Lian was able to go through the procedure with ease as she had no medical complications and did not suffer from hypertension or diabetes.
“She was stable throughout the procedure and after the operation she recuperated well without any infection on the wound,” she told Bernama last Monday.
Dr. Marlia said the children of the patient consented to the operation because they did not want to see their mother suffer in pain and be bed-ridden.
Hee Lian’s son, carpenter Lai Kau Chai, 62, said his mother was wheelchair-bound after the first operation 10 years ago. However, he said, she was healthy and had no major illness.
He said his mother suffered a fall outside his brother’s house last November and was rushed to the HTAA.
“After she was discharged, we had to make her stay in a nursing home here as they had people who could take good care of her to recuperate,” he said.
Hee Lian has seven children, two of them daughters, aged 60 to 82. Her husband, who had worked in a tin mine in Kampung Sungai Lembing, died in 1970 at the age of 60.
Lai said his mother was a housewife but as a young woman she use to tend to her vegetable farm and rear poultry in her hometown in Kampung Sungai Lembing.
“I really thank the hospital for a job well done and for having taken good care of my mother. Dr Jacob is good and a nice man. I really appreciate what he has done,” he said.