A NATION LOST A MOTHER
Remembering Tun Dr Siti Hasmah Mohamad Ali
A century of grace, compassion, service and quiet strength.
A Personal Tribute by
Dr. Amarjeet Singh @ AJ
There are deaths that make headlines.
There are deaths that close chapters of history.
And then there are departures that somehow feel much more personal — as though someone from our own family has quietly left the room.
The passing of Tun Dr Siti Hasmah Mohamad Ali at the age of 100 feels like that.
Malaysia has lost more than the wife of a former Prime Minister.
We have lost a doctor.
A mother.
A grandmother.
A humanitarian.
A sports lover.
A musician.
And a Malaysian whose gentleness touched generations.
A nation has lost a mother.
Tun Dr Siti Hasmah passed away on 28 September 2026 at the National Heart Institute, having celebrated her 100th birthday earlier in the year.
She was laid to rest at Pusara Negara in Putrajaya, as Malaysians from different walks of life mourned a woman whose place in our national story was built not merely through association with power, but through a lifetime of service, compassion and dignity.
But perhaps the most meaningful way to remember Tun Dr Siti Hasmah is not through dates, titles or ceremonies.
It is through the little stories.
Because sometimes the smallest stories tell us the most about a human being.
BEFORE SHE STOOD BESIDE A PRIME MINISTER, SHE STOOD BESIDE PATIENTS
Long before Malaysia knew her as the wife of Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, Hasmah Mohamad Ali was already breaking barriers.
She was the only Malay woman in her medical cohort at the King Edward VII College of Medicine in Singapore and graduated as a doctor in 1955.
After marrying Dr Mahathir in 1956, she moved to Alor Setar and continued her career in government medicine.
In 1965 she became the first woman appointed as a medical officer in Kedah's Maternal and Child Health Department, and in 1974 became the first woman appointed State Maternal and Child Health Officer.
“Before history placed her beside one of Malaysia's most powerful political figures, medicine had already placed her beside mothers, children and families who needed help.”
Imagine rural Malaysia in those years.
Transportation was difficult. Poverty prevented some families from travelling easily to hospitals. Modern healthcare was still feared or misunderstood in some communities.
Tun Dr Siti Hasmah came to understand something fundamental:
Healthcare could not merely wait behind hospital doors.
Sometimes healthcare had to go to the people.
She worked with rural communities and traditional birth attendants. Programmes helped traditional midwives adopt cleaner and safer delivery practices, bringing public health knowledge closer to mothers and babies.
Somewhere in Malaysia are families whose mothers, grandmothers and children benefited from the healthcare system that pioneers like Tun Dr Siti Hasmah helped strengthen.
That is legacy.
Not something merely written on a wall.
Something that continues living in another human being.
THE RM10 THAT SAID SO MUCH
One story from her early medical career deserves to be remembered.
A poor village man once approached her after his wife had given birth and required blood.
He offered the money to Dr Siti Hasmah.
Initially she was upset. Why was this poor man trying to pay her?
Then she understood. He apparently believed he had to pay for the blood his wife had received.
She returned his money and told him to use it to buy food instead.
Sometimes RM10 can tell us more about a person's character than a hundred awards.
She saw the poverty behind the money.
She saw the human being behind the patient.
MEDICINE WAS ALSO ABOUT TRUST
Her philosophy of healthcare went beyond simply constructing clinics.
People had to trust those clinics.
They had to understand why vaccination mattered, why mothers needed medical care and why children needed protection from preventable diseases.
Educate. Listen. Understand. Prevent. Care.
Even late in life, she continued advocating vaccination and encouraging medical professionals to educate parents.
The doctor in her never really disappeared.
“IBU” TO OUR BADMINTON HEROES
Then there was another love in her life — badminton.
Tun Dr Siti Hasmah served for more than two decades as patron of the Badminton Association of Malaysia before stepping down in 2007.
Her involvement was not ceremonial. She loved the sport and continued playing competitively well into later life.
When Malaysia's legendary 1992 Thomas Cup team ended the country's long wait to bring the trophy home, the relationship between the players and Tun Dr Siti Hasmah extended far beyond official functions.
The players remembered her as a
MOTHER FIGURE.
She knew their triumphs and disappointments. She understood that behind trophies were human beings carrying enormous expectations.
And years after her formal association with badminton had ended, that caring nature remained.
When Japanese world No. 1 Kento Momota was injured in a road accident in Malaysia in January 2020, Tun Dr Siti Hasmah visited him at Putrajaya Hospital.
She no longer had a formal obligation to be there.
She went anyway.
Sometimes the simplest measure of character is:
When you don't have to show up,
do you still show up?
She did.
THE LADY WITH THE VIOLIN
Perhaps one of the most beautiful stories about Tun Dr Siti Hasmah came towards the end of her extraordinary century.
She learned the violin when she was young but put it aside at 16 to concentrate on her studies.
Seven decades passed.
Then, at 86 years old, she picked up the violin again.
But perhaps one of her most meaningful performances was not in a concert hall.
On 16 April 2026, at 99 years old, Tun Dr Siti Hasmah visited an old friend, Zakaria Kader — Pak Ya — who was recovering from serious spinal and neck injuries.
And she brought something with her.
HER VIOLIN.
Not for television.
Not for a state function.
Not for applause.
She brought music to comfort a friend.
Think about that image.
A 99-year-old woman.
A century of history behind her.
A lifetime among presidents, prime ministers, royalty and national figures.
And there she was carrying a violin to comfort an old friend.
When someone was hurting,
she brought music.
HER WORLD WAS BIGGER THAN POLITICS
Tun Dr Siti Hasmah's public service extended across maternal and child health, immunisation, women's welfare, family wellbeing, adult literacy, community development and advocacy against drug abuse.
Her philosophy remained remarkably consistent:
Don't merely treat a problem after it happens.
Educate.
Prevent.
Strengthen families.
Protect children.
SEVEN DECADES BESIDE TUN DR MAHATHIR
And, of course, no account of her extraordinary life can ignore the man with whom she shared almost seven decades of marriage — Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad.
Their story began as medical students.
They married in 1956 and raised seven children — four biological and three adopted.
Malaysia watched them grow older together.
We saw the photographs. The smiles. The humour. The companionship. The simple moments of two elderly people who had travelled an extraordinary distance together.
Whatever one's views of Tun Dr Mahathir's long and consequential political career, there is another human story here:
The story of two people who walked through almost seventy years of life together.
Yet Tun Dr Siti Hasmah was never simply “the wife of.”
She was Dr Siti Hasmah before she became the Prime Minister's wife.
And she remained Dr Siti Hasmah afterwards.
A NATION LOST A MOTHER
Perhaps that is why her passing feels different.
Political leaders are remembered through policies.
Business leaders through companies.
Athletes through trophies.
Artists through their work.
But occasionally someone becomes remembered through something far more difficult to manufacture:
AFFECTION.
The badminton players knew a mother figure.
Patients knew the doctor.
Communities knew the advocate.
Friends knew the woman who might arrive carrying a violin.
Her children knew their mother.
Tun Dr Mahathir knew the woman who had walked beside him for almost seventy years.
And Malaysia knew Tun Dr Siti Hasmah.
WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM HER CENTURY?
Maybe the lesson of Tun Dr Siti Hasmah's life is surprisingly simple.
You don't have to shout to be strong.
You don't have to dominate to lead.
You don't need political power to serve your country.
You don't need cameras to practise kindness.
You don't have to tell everyone that you care.
Sometimes you simply show up.
For a mother in a rural village.
For a frightened child.
For young athletes carrying the hopes of a nation.
For an injured visitor lying in hospital.
For an old friend recovering from surgery.
Sometimes you show up carrying medicine.
Sometimes encouragement.
Sometimes merely your presence.
And sometimes...
you bring your violin.
SALAM TAKZIAH
My deepest and most heartfelt Salam Takziah to
Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad
and to their children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, relatives and the entire family of
Allahyarhamah Tun Dr Siti Hasmah Mohamad Ali.
No matter how celebrated someone becomes, to her family she remains a wife, a mother, a grandmother and someone deeply loved.
Malaysia shares a small part of your grief.
May Allah SWT forgive her shortcomings, accept her lifetime of good deeds and service, shower His mercy upon her soul, and grant her the highest place among the righteous in
Jannatul Firdaus.
إِنَّا لِلّهِ وَإِنَّـا إِلَيْهِ رَاجِعونَ
Inna lillahi wa inna ilaihi raji'un.
Al-Fatihah.
THE VIOLIN MAY BE SILENT,
BUT THE MELODY REMAINS
The doctor's coat has been folded.
The badminton racquet has been placed down.
The hands that cared for mothers and children may now rest.
And the violin has fallen silent.
But perhaps that violin leaves Malaysia with one final metaphor.
A violin does not need to be the loudest instrument in an orchestra to be remembered.
It simply needs to touch the heart.
And for one extraordinary century,
that was precisely what Tun Dr Siti Hasmah did.
She touched hearts.
Not through power.
Not through noise.
Not by demanding recognition.
But through grace, compassion, loyalty, humility and service.
A century has ended.
A beautiful Malaysian life has completed its journey.
But goodness does not disappear when the person who practised it leaves us.
It continues through the lives they touched.
Rest peacefully,
Tun Dr Siti Hasmah Mohamad Ali.
Malaysia has lost a pioneering doctor.
Malaysia has lost a remarkable woman.
Malaysia has lost a gentle national figure.
And in the hearts of many Malaysians,
a nation has lost a mother.
Al-Fatihah.
A PERSONAL TRIBUTE
Dr. Amarjeet Singh @ AJ
30 September 2026
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