“You have to have a happy mind and happy attitude. Come and sit with me during breakfast and dinner and see the number of medicines I take. Watch your diet, rest well, have a good mental attitude, keep smiling and exercise please. Meeting young people keeps me youthful too. I love talking to people and young mothers with a child are my favourite targets. I always ask them two questions – how many children they have and if they’ve been vaccinated. It is very important they go through the immunisation so babies are protected from diseases that kill them before they turn one.”
Tun Dr Siti Hasmah in her autobiography, My Name is Hasmah.
It’s YABhg Tun Dr Siti Hasmah Hj. Mohd Ali birthday, today!
Happy Birthday to our beloved Tun Siti, the wife of Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, our Honorary President and Malaysia’s fourth and seventh Prime Minister. May Tun Siti continue to be blessed with good health and happiness, always.
In conjunction with Tun Siti’s birthday (fun fact: it’s two days after her husband’s birthday), here are five interesting facts about YABhg Tun Dr Siti Hasmah:
1. 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.
2. She met Tun Dr Mahathir in University. He was her senior and tutored her in Physics and Chemistry. Love bloomed on and off campus, and on 4th August 1956, they married in Kuala Lumpur.
3. Tun Siti has always loved music. 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.
4. 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. She resigned soon after her husband became Malaysia’s Deputy Prime Minister, and took up a part-time lecturing position at Universiti Malaya (she resigned from that job in 1981 when Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad became Malaysia’s fourth Prime Minister).
5. 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).
To read more about her biography; visit our website by clicking this link: https://www.perdana.org.my/pms-of-malaysia/tun-dr-mahathir-mohamad/tun-dr-siti-hasmah-bt-mohd-ali/
