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Happy 96th Birthday, Tun Dr Siti Hasmah

By Mohammad Faridzuan Abd Rahman
July 12, 2022

Happy Birthday to the gracious Tun Dr Siti Hasmah Hj Mohd Ali. May Allah shower you with an abundance of love, good health, happiness, and prosperity.
#tundrsitihasmah #tunsiti96

Some interesting facts about YABhg Tun Dr Siti Hasmah:

Tun Dr Siti Hasmah enrolled in King Edward VII College of Medicine in Singapore on a scholarship. She was the only Malay female student in her batch.
Tun Dr. Siti Hasmah spent a year – 1955 – working in the paediatric ward of the General Hospital Kuala Lumpur.
She became the first woman to be appointed Medical Officer in the Maternal and Child Health Department in Kedah, and later in 1974, became the first woman to be appointed the State Maternal and Child Health Officer.
Tun Dr Siti Hasmah retired from government service in 1979, joining the Dental Faculty of the University of Malaya as a part-time lecturer until 1981 when her husband Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad became Malaysia’s fourth Prime Minister.
Tun Dr Siti Hasmah led the Malaysian delegation to the United Nation Fourth World Conference on Women at Beijing where she spoke on “Equality, Development and Peace: A Caring World” in September 1995.
Tun Siti has always loved music. She is an accomplished violinist and pianist. She started playing the violin when she was in her twenties, and still plays the instrument today. She also plays the piano, and even took a play-by-ear course for the organ! In 2018, her violin was auctioned for RM35,000 to raise funds for PH’s campaign for the 14th General Elections.
Tun Siti Hasmah is a published author. Her memoir My Name Is Hasmah (2016) recounts her upbringing, medical career and her experience as the wife of Malaysia’s longest-serving Prime Minister.
In 2003, Tun Dr Siti Hasmah was awarded the distinguished Federal Award of Seri Setia Mahkota Malaysia (SSM) which carries the title of ‘Tun’ together with the Prime Minister who was awarded the SMN (Seri Maharaja Mangku Negara) on his retirement. This is the first time the wife of a Prime Minister of Malaysia was awarded the SSM by the Yang di-Pertuan Agong (Supreme Ruler of Malaysia).
In 2018, Tun Dr Siti Hasmah Mohd Ali was honoured as a “global icon to pioneer and inspire women worldwide” by the National University of Singapore (NUS) — the island republic’s flagship university founded in 1905. Tun Dr Siti has also served in numerous leadership positions, championing adult literacy, mental health, and drug abuse control.
Tun Dr Siti Hasmah was conferred the ‘Lifetime Achievement Award’ at the Asia Human Resource Development Awards 2019. Tun Siti was recognised for her ‘outstanding contribution towards the development of Malaysia’s public health sector’.
In December 2021, Tun Siti launched a coffee table book, Speaking of Mass Destruction, about her humanitarian fact-finding mission to Baghdad in 2000, to witness the extent of the catastrophe which had befallen Iraq as a result of the punishing economic sanctions imposed on the country by the United Nations (UN) in 1990.