The man at her front door is Dr Michael Yoong, a physician from Hospice Klang. He is also now her good friend.

Retired teacher Navamala has been battling cancer since 2001. She wants to stay at home rather than return to hospital.

Dr Yoong and his small team have come to see how she is progressing. And today FMT is along too.

Medical checkups are no fun, even for the healthy, but Navamala, 69, is used to them now.

She tells FMT how much she looks forward to the team’s visits.

“They come to my home and we chat. We discuss my condition, and then I don’t feel so depressed. I’m very thankful to them.”

In minutes the examination is over and conversation shifts to Navamala’s daughter and her trip to the Himalayas.

But it’s soon back to business for the team, who work to a tight schedule.

Yoong, his nurse Nur Zuriana Ismail, and their volunteer driver Betty Ng, can’t stay too long to chat as they have other patients to visit. They leave Navamala with a hug.

Since 1995, Hospice Klang has been providing free palliative care to cancer patients who wish to live out their last days at home.

“Our patients typically have six months or less to live. We try to fulfill their wishes for a better quality of life,” Yoong tells us in the car on the way to their next patient.

Medically, there is little more that can be done for their patients but the hospice’s work means at least they don’t have to go back into hospital.

“Whenever a patient has to go back to hospital, we see that as a failure on our part,” the 72-year-old doctor, volunteer, and hospice chairman says.

Given their limited resources, Yoong’s definition of failure seems harsh for a non-profit group driven by a small team of doctors, nurses and volunteers.

Yoong knows that there is only so much medicine can do, especially for patients with late-stage cancer, and this is why he sees the moral support they give patients as being no less important than medical treatment.

That support is something their next appointment, 54-year-old widow Suzelina Basiran, who has womb cancer, values very much.

She has only been a patient of the hospice for a month, but the team comes every week owing to the seriousness of her illness.

“I enjoy the visits from the doctors and nurses. They are so friendly, and I can tell them all my problems,” Suzelina says.

“Dr Yoong is like a father to me.

“Their visits really help me, especially when I am sad. They advise us and it helps clear our minds and lift our spirits.”

She speaks proudly of how she has taken their advice to be strong. Last week she managed to attend a wedding and enjoy a day out at Ikea.

Yoong has led Hospice Klang for 12 years, and the organisation has grown from having 30 patients to around 150 at a time.

Five days a week, the medical team of two doctors, four nurses and 20 volunteers, go out in four groups, each group visiting 6 to 8 patients a day.

Their headquarters in Kota Bayu Emas serves as a place where they can meet to give updates on their patients, restock medicines, and occasionally take a well-earned rest.

Yoong spends the other half of his day at his private practice, also in Klang.

Building relationships with people who do not have long to live can be taxing on the heart and mind.

“We have to be prepared for death, and we are, but there are times I do cry.”

However, says Yoong, there is a silver lining.

“The feeling of making a difference big or small in someone’s life, makes us happy.”