On the night of September 27, Tun Dr Siti Hasmah Mohamad Ali’s family visited her at the National Heart Institute, where she had been receiving treatment for another ailment. She was cheerful and then she told them she was ready to go.
“She was in a good mood, but she told us she was ready to leave us all,” her son Datuk Seri Mukhriz Mahathir said, as quoted by NST.
The next morning at 8am, she suffered a heart-related episode. Mukhriz rushed to IJN and arrived to find specialists already performing CPR. She was transferred to the Coronary Care Unit. The family was told CPR would continue for fifteen more minutes, and if her heart did not respond, it would stop. Tun Dr Mahathir was in the same building throughout, in a separate room, waiting.
Tun Dr Siti Hasmah Mohamad Ali died that morning at the age of 100, after more than 70 years of marriage.
Ibu Negara
Most Malaysians knew her as Ibu Negara, the First Lady who stood beside her husband through decades of political life. But she had her own career long before any of that. She was Kedah’s first female medical officer, a doctor who built her practice in the field and carried that grounding into everything she did in public life afterwards, including her work on maternal and child health, breastfeeding awareness and community welfare.
She used the platform she was given rather than just filling it, and she did it without making a performance of it. The people who watched her closely over the years tended to say the same thing: she stayed warm where political life could have hardened her, and she stayed herself when proximity to power changes most people.
A nation said goodbye
Over 2,000 mourners gathered at Masjid As Syarif, Taman Sungai Besi Indah for her funeral prayers before she was laid to rest with full state honours at the National Cemetery in Presint 20, Putrajaya, buried beside the grave of the late Tun Endon Mahmood.
Her son Tan Sri Mokhzani said the family was still absorbing what had happened. They had spent a lot of time with her in the weeks and months before the end, he said, which was something. “There’s no one last memory. There are millions of memories.”
The photo that moved Malaysia
In the hours after her death, a photograph began circulating online. It showed three healthcare workers from IJN standing beside Dr Mahathir, one Malay, one Chinese and one Indian, each of them present as he sat with his grief. Health advocacy platform Public Health Malaysia shared it first, noting that the three had been monitoring and caring for him throughout. Former Health director general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah shared it too.
“As Malaysians worry and pray for Tun Mahathir’s health, three dedicated healthcare workers from IJN, one Malay, one Chinese and one Indian, stand by his side. They are a powerful reflection of Malaysia’s diversity, united in caring for him. Thank you to our frontline workers,” he wrote.
The photo drew over 121,000 reactions. One commenter said losing her felt like losing a mother. Another described her as a mother figure known only from afar, whose warmth had somehow always felt close. A third wrote simply: “This is the spirit of Malaysians. Regardless of race, we are here for one another.”
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‘I gave up my family to pursue my dreams’ Shares 34 YO M’sian woman
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