For eight long years, Amanda Mei Chu lived with a gnawing fear that her tomorrow might never come.
Now, for the first time, her father says she is allowing herself to dream again.
“All I want is tomorrow,” Amanda told her father, Dominic Damian, after he broke the news that authorities had finally moved to secure the HIV treatment she was denied for eight years.
“She said it softly, but it was the clearest thing she has told me in a long time,” said Damian.
“For so long, she carried her pain in silence. Now she’s saying she wants to live.”
The health ministry, the Malaysian AIDS Council (MAC) and the Malaysian AIDS Foundation have pledged to restore her lifelong treatment and assist with her citizenship.
The breakthrough came within hours of an FMT report that Amanda was denied government medical aid after being told she was not a Malaysian citizen.
This morning, she will finally be examined at Sungai Buloh Hospital – a decisive step forward after nearly a decade without specialist care.
A father’s gratitude
Damian, who adopted Amanda when she was an abandoned baby, born with HIV, said the relief was immediate — “not only for her, but for the whole family.”
“The anxiety of these past years… it has been crushing. But today there is light,” he said.
He thanked health minister Dzulkefly Ahmad, MAC, the foundation, and FMT for what he called “a lifeline delivered when hope was running out”.
“I am deeply grateful that they heard us. Amanda cannot turn back the years lost, but she now has a fighting chance.”
Amanda, now 29, had been on treatment since childhood, but in 2017 her care was abruptly cut off due to issues surrounding her citizenship.
Without access to medication, her health faltered. At times, Damian admitted, he feared each night could be her last.
“There were nights I would wake up just to check if she was breathing,” he said.
With fresh commitments from MAC and the foundation, Amanda will begin antiretroviral therapy again, a treatment essential to suppress the virus.
“MAC has pledged to help with her citizenship,” Damian said. “That, to me, is as vital as the treatment. Amanda wants to belong — to her country, to her future.”
Holding on to hope
Amanda’s words, carried through her father, are now at the centre of her story.
“She told me, ‘I just want to live. I want to heal. I want to belong,’” Damian said.
For him, that is enough. “After all this time, Amanda is still holding on. That is her strength. That is her tomorrow,” he said.
