Nong Saengkham, the second child of father SAIDAY WINT@THONG AU and mother NAN HMWE@AE, is a daily wage earner living in the highlands of Burma.
When he was 4 years old, he got sick with a fever. His mother took him to see a doctor at a clinic in Burma. The doctor said that he probably had a heart disease but did not treat him. However, his mother noticed that Nong Saengkham would feel tired and short of breath when he had a fever. He would say that he could not breathe, was lethargic, could not eat, and had no appetite. He would not join activities with his friends at school because he got tired easily.
Until 2011, his father and mother came to work in Nonthaburi Province as a construction worker, earning 300 baht per day. After working for a while, they consulted their employer about Nong Saengkham. The employer suggested that they bring him to Thailand for a check-up to be sure and to continue receiving treatment.
In March 2014, when Nong was on school break, her mother took Nong Saengkham for further check-ups at Phra Nang Klao Hospital to make sure that he really had a heart disease. The doctor said that Nong Saengkham really did have a heart disease. But the mother still did not believe it, so she took her child to Siriraj Hospital for another check-up, where the doctor said that the child also had a heart condition. The last time, the mother took the child to the Queen Sirikit National Institute of Child Health, which was the fourth hospital. The doctor said that the child had a heart disease with atrial septal defect. The only treatment method was surgery. The mother was certain that the child definitely had a heart condition, so she agreed to have the surgery. The Queen Sirikit National Institute of Child Health therefore sent Saengkham to be a patient of the Pediatric Cardiac Surgery Foundation to ask for help with the cost of the surgery because the child did not have any medical benefits. The foundation accepted the child as a patient and arranged for the child to have the surgery on April 28, 2014 at Kasemrad Prachachuen Hospital, without any expenses at all.
