Perkeso officer goes door to door to find those in need

When most people are still turning over in bed, Muhammad Abrar Othman, or Abrar as he's better known, has already risen and started his day.

There are names to check, calls to make and addresses to find. Somewhere across Johor are people who have been injured, fallen ill or lost a loved one, and they may not even know that help is available.

Abrar's job is to find them.

A PERKESO Skuad Prihatin Sinergi officer, Abrar, 32, rises around 4.30am and is usually at his desk by 5.30am, going through cases that come in overnight.

He waits until after dawn to make his calls, mindful that there's little point waking up someone simply to tell them he's from PERKESO.

Some answer; some don't. For those who don't, he tries again — another call, perhaps a WhatsApp message, then another attempt around 8 or 8.30am.

By 9am, he's on the road. Johor is a big patch to cover. His work takes him to Kulai, Pasir Gudang, Kota Tinggi and Pontian.

Sometimes, he goes as far as Desaru, where the drive alone can take an hour and 45 minutes.

When I marvel at the early starts and distances involved, Abrar chuckles.

"I'm not working in Singapore. I work in Johor."

It's a throwaway joke, but it gives me my first glimpse of the man behind the job — easy-going and seemingly unfazed by the amount of road ahead of him.

Abrar has been with PERKESO for about 11 years, joining as a fresh graduate in his early 20s as an enforcement officer before moving to the benefits unit in 2018.

After the Movement Control Order at the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, he was transferred to Skuad Prihatin Sinergi, taking him out of the office and into the homes of people who might otherwise slip through the cracks.

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He is also a two-time recipient of the Anugerah Khidmat Cemerlang PERKESO, in 2022 and 2025. But the awards are not what you notice when you're sitting with him in someone else's living room.

It's the way he settles into the conversation, the patience with which he lets people tell him what happened, and the fact that he rarely seems to be in a hurry to get through the paperwork.

WHERE TO BEGIN

Skuad Prihatin works on a simple principle: Search & Serve.

Rather than waiting for people to walk into a PERKESO office, its officers go looking for those who may not know they're entitled to assistance, or who may be too injured, ill, grieving or financially stretched to make the first move.

Cases come through hospitals, the police, community networks and even the media.

Once a name lands on Abrar's list, he starts tracking that person down — sometimes through phone calls and sometimes by driving for hours, following a trail to their latest address.

And when he gets there, the paperwork can wait.

Abrar sits down and talks to them first, asking what happened, about their family and work, and what worries them most.

Some are anxious and full of questions; others are upset or simply too overwhelmed to know where to begin.

But the business administration and marketing graduate lets them do the talking first. Only when they have settled down does he bring out the forms.

A visit can take an hour and a half, sometimes two hours. On an ordinary day, he may see two beneficiaries, although there are days when he manages five.

By 3 or 4pm, he's usually back at the office, handing the documents to the benefits team and flagging cases that need urgent attention.

The next day, he starts again. And that's how I came to spend a day following Abrar going from one modest house to another, meeting people whose lives have been knocked sideways by accident, illness and loss, and watching the man who came looking for them sit down and listen.

WHEN REZEKI COMES A-KNOCKING

At Sahbanah Saidali's modest single-storey house in Bandar Baru Kangkar Pulai, the rack outside the front door heaves with haphazardly arranged shoes and sandals.

Inside, glasses of water are waiting on the table, a small, almost instinctive gesture of hospitality.

Sahbanah, however, is hardly in a position to be playing host. The 49-year-old sits in a wheelchair, her headscarf neatly framing a tired face.

Her daughter moves around us, finding places to sit and tending to everyone while keeping a watchful eye on her mother.

For most of her life before her accident, Sahbanah was always on the move.

She has been working at Seagate Senai since 2011 as a material handler in the hard disk section, moving materials from one production line to another.

Almost an entire 10-hour stretch of her 12-hour shift was spent on her feet.

On her days off, she worked at a grocery shop, sometimes from 10am to 10pm. In a week, she worked four days at the factory, two at the shop and had one day to rest.

Her mornings began at 4.30am; she cooked, got ready and left home around 5.30am, often picking up a colleague along the way to work.

She has four children; her husband drives a lorry. It's a life built around keeping things moving.

Then came polling day. After voting in the Johor election in Tampoi and making a quick stop to shop, Sahbanah hurried home.

Her husband was washing the patio while she went inside to prepare food for her father. Even then, she was thinking about the next thing that needed to be done.

As she stepped out of the house, she glanced behind her.

The floor mat she expected to be in front of her was missing, but she didn't notice it. Her foot landed where she thought it would, but she slipped and twisted her leg as she fell.

Her husband, children and a neighbour's child rushed to her aid, but they could not lift her.

They had to bring out her mother-in-law's wheelchair to take her to the hospital. For a woman who'd spent most of her life on her feet, she now depended on a wheelchair to get around.

At first, doctors told her that her leg wasn't fractured, but the pain persisted. When a specialist reviewed the X-ray, Sahbanah was diagnosed with a soft-tissue injury with a suspected talus fracture and was put in a cast up to her knee.

She describes her injured leg as something that weighed 5kg.

For someone accustomed to an active lifestyle, she suddenly needed help to move from one room to another. Even getting to the bathroom meant relying on a walking frame.

"I felt completely helpless," she says.

The pain of not being able to walk again is one thing; the disruption to her life is even worse.

Sahbanah is still receiving her basic salary from Seagate, but she can no longer work at the grocery shop.

The bills and responsibilities, however, did not become lighter. Things she'd always taken care of were now being done for her.

Her husband would return around lunchtime with food; after 3pm, one of her children might come home with something to eat. Sahbanah would be there, waiting in her wheelchair.

She has never been comfortable asking her children for money. They're grown and working, but that didn't make it any easier to depend on them.

She spent too many years looking after everyone else and now, she has suddenly become the one who needed to be looked after.

"I was always rushing. Now, I wait," she says.

It's a simple sentence, but perhaps it captures better than anything else what the injury has taken from her.

HELP ARRIVES

When Abrar checked her PERKESO records, he found that she was an active contributor who had opted to enrol in LINDUNG 24 Jam, a scheme that provides protection for accidents that occur outside working hours.

Her medical leave ran from July 14 to Aug 19, and she received RM2,160.80 in temporary disablement benefit.

The payment came at a time when her grocery shop income had stopped, her independence had been curtailed and her family had suddenly taken on responsibilities she'd always carried herself.

As she confides about being unable to work and the fear of becoming a burden to her husband and children, her voice falters.

Her eyes fill with tears. Her daughter moves closer as Abrar reaches for the tissue box and gently places one in her hand.

When the payment came through within days, Sahbanah called it a rezeki — help arriving when the family needed it most.

She now has Abrar's number and messages him whenever she's unsure about something.

He arrived at her home as a PERKESO officer. Now, when she needs to know what comes next, she knows who to call.

"Sometimes, being a good listener is all that's needed," says Abrar.

WEIGHT OF UNCERTAINTY

At Lee Seng Kiong's house in Gelang Patah, the atmosphere is quieter.

It's another modest single-storey home in a housing estate, but with little furniture in the living room, it feels surprisingly spacious.

At the centre, a Chinese altar occupies pride of place, lending the otherwise uncluttered room a sense of permanence.

Clad in a crisp red-collared T-shirt, Lee, 59, welcomes us in, a bandage wrapped around his arm.

His wife pulls out red plastic chairs, taking one for herself and drawing it close to her husband.

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She stays beside him throughout, listening quietly as he recounts the accident that suddenly threw their household finances into uncertainty.

Lee makes his living from taking care of ornamental fish. He works at the Hong Ta Ikan Tropika fish farm in Pekan Nenas, where the job is physically demanding — there's always something to lift or move around.

These days, his right hand gets in the way of all of it.

He cannot straighten it fully. At night, a wrong movement can wake him with a jolt of pain. When it gets bad, he takes paracetamol and waits for it to subside.

His doctor told him there's no operation that can fix the problem. For now, he exercises the hand and takes care of it.

Even carrying water has become difficult. There's no pump at the fish farm, Lee explains, so he has to fill a container and carry it himself.

It's heavy — and it's his right hand he needs.

His accident happened on July 19, around 9am, along Km18 of the Johor Baru-Gelang Patah road.

He was riding his motorcycle when another motorcycle in front of him suddenly turned left. Lee had no time to avoid the motorcycle and crashed into it.

The impact left him with five broken ribs and injuries to his right hand, leg and head.

He spent five days receiving initial treatment at Sultanah Aminah Hospital before being transferred to Gleneagles Medini. He was given medical leave until Aug 21.

Asked when he expects to return to work, Lee says he doesn't know.

Fortunately, his boss has been understanding, telling him he can return when he feels ready and take on lighter jobs instead of the heavy work.

For now, that takes some pressure off. But Lee is the sole breadwinner. His wife has stopped working, and without knowing when he can resume his usual duties, he has no idea how long the household can manage on what they have.

Which makes a decision he made a few months earlier all the more significant.

Lee had heard about PERKESO's new 24-hour protection scheme from his boss, but he wasn't immediately convinced.

He has heard the stories about the difficulties in making a claim — that the process took a long time and it was full of red tape.

This was reinforced by his own experience years earlier. At that time, while working at a motorcycle workshop, a tyre exploded and struck him in the head.

The workshop boss told him not to bother making an insurance claim; it would be difficult and he wouldn't get much anyway.

So, Lee didn't make a claim.

This time, when the new LINDUNG 24 coverage came up, he asked his children what they thought of it.

Keep it, they told him. If something happens outside work, at least there'd be some protection.

So, he kept it.

Then, on July 19, something did happen. PERKESO's records showed that Lee was an active contributor who qualified for coverage for accidents occurring outside working hours.

For his medical leave from July 19 to Aug 21, he received RM1,604 in temporary disablement benefit.

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It wouldn't replace everything that Lee could earn, but for a sole breadwinner, it offered some relief to his family as he recovers from his injury.

Abrar also helped him make sense of what comes next. Lee wanted to know what to do with his medical certificate, what would happen if he needed another and whether physiotherapy would be covered, particularly when each session could cost RM200 or RM300.

Abrar patiently guided him on what help was available and what he needed to do.

"He really explains everything," Lee says, turning to the PERKESO officer, who smiles modestly.

For now, Lee still has an injured hand, a long recovery ahead and a household waiting for him to get back on his feet.

Now, I understand why Abrar says the visits can take so long. You can't simply walk into someone's home, collect a set of documents and leave.

There's always a story before the paperwork.

In Sahbanah's case, it's the loss of independence; in Lee's case, it's the fear of losing the household's only income.

And in Kavita Rajagopal's predicament, the story is more tangled.

PIECING HER LIFE BACK TOGETHER

Kavita's two-storey rented house sits among the modest homes in a residential area.

Inside, the house suggests a busy family life — people coming in and going out, doors opening and closing — the ordinary buzz of a lived-in home.

However, there's very little of that now.

The living room is sparsely furnished, with a single table standing in the otherwise open space.

We sit together on a rug on the floor, close enough that the conversation soon feels less like an interview and more like Kavita slowly confiding how her life has unravelled.

The room is dim, the afternoon light muted by makeshift curtains. Upstairs, several rooms stand empty.

Until recently, she rented the rooms to sub-tenants for extra income.

It was a precarious arrangement for her as the anchor tenant, but it helped make the numbers work — until she was assaulted by one of her tenants during a confrontation over the rent.

The 42-year-old has spent about a decade working as a security guard at a factory in i-Park Senai, putting in 12-hour shifts from 7am to 7pm.

Her salary is about RM2,500, but after deductions and an advance, she takes home around RM1,800.

With RM1,400 going towards the house rent, there's little left for everything else.

On July 5, at about 11.30pm, Kavita went upstairs to collect rent from one of her tenants. Instead, the tenant became aggressive and she found herself under attack.

Her son arrived soon after and was also injured in the confrontation, requiring eight stitches to his injuries.

When the situation escalated, Kavita stepped in between her son and the tenant and was struck on the right hand, fracturing her middle finger.

She was taken to Temeng­gong Seri Maharaja Tun Ibrahim Hospital for treatment and her hand became swollen and stiff, with numbness and pain when she tried to move it.

For someone whose livelihood depends on turning up for a 12-hour shift, an injured hand is more than an inconvenience.

It threatens her ability to earn. Her salary has already gone unpaid for a month and her employer is waiting for her to recover, while the RM1,400 rent continues to fall due.

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Yet when Kavita talks about the future, she doesn't dwell on any of that for long.

She talks about work. She has even driven with one hand because she needs to get around and, perhaps more importantly, because she cannot bear to be completely still.

"I just want to return to work," she says.

She wants her old routine back — the 7am start, the long shift, the tired journey home, the monthly salary that allowed her to pay the bills and look after herself and her son.

It wasn't an easy life, but it was one she knew how to manage. Her 22-year-old son drives a school van when he can.

At one point, he was staying with a friend because he didn't have the money or transport to manage on his own.

Kavita worries about him even as she tries to keep her own life from slipping further out of reach.

She's also worried about the house. She told her landlord she had fallen because she did not want to risk losing the home she was struggling to pay for.

Upstairs, bloodstains can still be seen on the floor, which hasn't been completely cleaned since the confrontation.

Her dog died in March and she lives alone now. There's a lot for Kavita to carry, but she doesn't seem to want anyone to do it for her.

What she wants is the chance to get back to doing what she has always done: working, earning and looking after herself and her son.

BREATHING SPACE

PERKESO wasn't on Kavita's mind when it happened. She only learnt about the organisation's 24-hour protection scheme when a clerk-friend told her she could make a claim.

When Abrar was asked to follow up on her case, he went to the address listed on her identity card in Taman Universiti. But Kavita no longer lives there.

So, he kept looking. Eventually, he found her at the current home. By then, her claim was already moving through the system.

PERKESO records showed Kavita was an active contributor who had agreed to coverage under the Skim Keselamatan Bukan Bencana Kerja (SKBBK) LINDUNG 24 Jam.

She was placed on medical leave from July 17 to Aug 24 and received RM1,528.80 in temporary disablement benefit.

By the time of our visit, she had also received RM600 in assistance. With a take-home pay of around RM1,800, minus the monthly rent of RM1,400, the money offered some breathing space while she recovered.

But Abrar's role didn't end with the payment. He talked Kavita through the medical certificates she needed to keep track of, what would happen next and where she could turn if her recovery took longer than expected.

He and his colleague, Andi, also discussed whether Social Synergy could connect her to other forms of social assistance or employment support.

There were limits to what PERKESO could do. It couldn't make her hand heal faster or replace the salary she lost.

But people like Abrar could ensure she did not have to navigate what came next entirely on her own.

And perhaps that's why the extra mile that he went to look for Kavita really matters.

Kavita had no permanent place to stay, and the details on her MyKad were not up to date.

Abrar could have just stopped looking for her with the outdated details. But he didn't. He kept looking until he found her.

Now, sitting together on the rug in that dim living room, he listens as Kavita talks about her injured hand, her son, the rent, the salary she has missed — and again about work.

For Kavita, work is more than a job. It's the thread holding her life together, and the thing she's most desperate to get back.

TO SEEK AND TO SERVE

This, says Abrar, is what Skuad Prihatin is about: to search and to serve.

After a day following him from one house to another, the phrase takes on a more human meaning.

It means going looking for people who might otherwise fall through the social security net — getting into the car and driving across Johor, calling again when nobody answers, or sometimes waiting until after dawn because a family has not yet been told that a loved one has died.

And when he finally reaches the right door, the work is rarely as simple as collecting documents and ticking boxes.

There's always a person behind the case: someone frightened, angry, embarrassed or simply exhausted; someone who may not know what they're entitled to, or who's wary of a process they've never dealt with before.

Abrar has learned that sometimes the most useful thing he can offer at the beginning is simply his time.

For all the weight of the work, there's nothing particularly solemn about the man himself.

He still makes time for football, badminton and the gym, laughs readily about the early starts and long drives, and seems almost amused by the fact that he's awake before dawn while most of us are still asleep.

But beneath that easy humour is an understanding that every address on his list belongs to someone whose life has been knocked off course.

He cannot mend Sahbanah's broken leg, make Lee's ribs heal faster or put Kavita's missing salary back in her hands.

But he can show up at the right door, at the right time, when someone's life has been knocked off course. Sometimes, that is where helping begins.