5-year-old Covid patient reunited with dad at HKL after solo ambulance ride

 

When the ambulance came to pick up Nur Saffiya at her home in Sepang last night, her mother Ira Hazwani was torn.

The five-year-old girl had tested positive for Covid-19 while her mother and younger sister were not.

"When the Health Ministry wanted to take Saffiya (to the hospital), I couldn't follow her.

"If I did, I'd have to take my youngest child who is only three years old, putting her at risk," Ira Hazwani told Malaysiakini today.

Ira Hazwani declined to provide the family's full names. 

Saffiya is believed to have caught the virus from her father who tested positive after being screened at work.

The father, Muhammad Ifwan, has been placed at the Quarantine and Low-Risk Treatment Centre at the Malaysia Agro Exposition Park in Serdang (Maeps).

After Saffiya tested positive, Ira said the Health Ministry helped to transfer her husband to the Kuala Lumpur Hospital so that both he and Safiyya could be together.

But although she will be with her father, Ira was concerned about letting her daughter make the journey to the hospital alone.

"I was sad and worried. She's only five, and she has to ride in an ambulance all alone plus I was worried she couldn't find her father.

"But when I asked her, 'Kakak are you okay riding the ambulance alone, Mama won't be there' she answered, "I'm okay. I want to see ayah (dad). I want to hug ayah," the mother said.

In a video shot by Ira, Saffiya appeared calm and upbeat as she said her goodbyes.

Another video by Muhammad Ifwan later showed Saffiya excitedly running (above) to greet her dad when he calls out to her upon meeting at the hospital.

Ira said she was grateful to the Health Ministry for helping to get Saffiya warded together with Muhammad Ifwan.

"Thank you so much to the Health Ministry, who was very tolerant of our situation and managed to get my daughter and husband warded together," she said. - Mkini