This article first appeared in Options, The Edge Malaysia Weekly on January 6, 2020 - January 12, 2020

Occupying an unassuming lot in Bukit Damansara, the Kuala Lumpur Sports Medicine Centre is highly lauded by international medical professionals and patients for its revolutionary work in stem cell therapy. Petrina Fernandez speaks to Dr Saw Khay Yong about his founding of the centre and how it grew into a prominent destination for medical tourism.

Spectators exclaimed in horror at the 2018 MotoGP Asia Talent Cup race when Danial Syahmi Sharil almost lost his life in a serious accident. The 16-year-old rising star had a terrifying collision that saw him thrown off his motorcycle and then run over by a fellow racer on the Sepang International Circuit that November, suffering serious injuries in his lower left leg. A helicopter immediately rushed him to Hospital Kuala Lumpur where the fractured bones in his leg were removed during emergency surgery. It was thought to be the end of the young talent’s promising career.

Fast forward a year and Danial is recovering steadily at the Kuala Lumpur Sports Medicine Centre (KLSMC), reclaiming his mobility with regenerated bones and nursing dreams of getting back to racing again. It is an aspiration the centre’s founder and director, Dr Saw Khay Yong, thinks is entirely possible. Probable, in fact.

It is a sunny weekday morning and most of the colourful therapy beds facing verdant Bukit Damansara are occupied by patients of all ages and nationalities. This is a medical centre unlike any other. The physiotherapy area we are in is spacious and bright with sunlight pouring in through the large windows. Patients are engaged in a variety of exercises, and the mood seems almost cheerful, unlike the typically sombre atmosphere of a physiotherapy unit.

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