When pain is well managed, everything else in life gets better
In the span of five years, a single clinic born from a son's grief over his mother's suffering has grown into a network of six branches across Peninsular Malaysia, treating its ten-thousandth patient for chronic knee pain without a single surgery. Klinik Tuah's milestone, reached in June 2026, speaks to something larger than one institution's success: it reflects a quiet shift in how Malaysians are beginning to understand pain itself — not as an inevitable companion to aging, but as a condition that modern, accessible medicine can address. Where resignation and the operating table once seemed like the only choices, a third path is gaining ground.
- Millions of Malaysians over fifty have long accepted knee pain as an unavoidable cost of growing older, cycling through painkillers that dulled but never resolved their suffering.
- Fear of surgery, prohibitive costs, and long waiting times kept many patients from seeking care at all, leaving a vast population in quiet, daily discomfort.
- Klinik Tuah entered that gap with non-surgical alternatives — PRP therapy, regenerative treatments, nerve blocks, and radio frequency ablation — paired with transparent, patient-centered consultations.
- The clinic's ten-thousandth patient arrived in June 2026, less than five years after its founding, signaling that demand for this approach is real and growing.
- With new branches planned for Gombak and Penang and a target of 35,000 patients by 2030, the clinic is racing to expand access before the unmet need outpaces its reach.
On June 5th, 2026, Klinik Tuah treated its ten-thousandth patient — a milestone reached in under five years since Dr. Hareez Noorman and his co-founders opened their first location in Cheras, Kuala Lumpur, in September 2021. The number matters less than what it represents: a growing conviction among Malaysians that chronic knee pain need not end in surgery or a lifetime of medication.
The clinic's origins are personal. Dr. Hareez watched his mother endure years of knee pain, accompanying her to appointments where doctors offered only pills that temporarily numbed the problem. Hearing her cry out at night left a mark that eventually shaped his career. After studying advanced knee treatment technologies across Korea, Japan, and Turkey, he returned with a conviction: Malaysia needed modern, non-surgical options at prices ordinary people could afford.
For decades, the default response to knee pain in Malaysia was surgery or resignation. What shifted was both technological and informational — regenerative treatments became available, and as word spread online and through communities, patients began asking whether another path existed. Klinik Tuah positioned itself as that path, offering PRP therapy, hyaluronic acid injections, genicular nerve blocks, and other procedures alongside personalized assessments that give patients a clear understanding of their own condition.
Roughly 72 percent of the clinic's patients are aged fifty and above — a population that had long accepted pain as inevitable. Now expanded to six branches across Peninsular Malaysia, with locations planned for Gombak and Penang, the clinic has set a new target of 35,000 patients by 2030. The ambition reflects a belief that many Malaysians are still living with untreated pain, not because treatment is impossible, but because access, awareness, and affordability have not yet caught up with need. The momentum, for now, is unmistakable.
In early June, a Malaysian clinic treating knee pain crossed a threshold that its founder had been working toward since the day it opened: ten thousand patients walked through the door. Klinik Tuah reached that milestone on June 5th, 2026—less than five years after Dr. Hareez Noorman and his co-founders opened their first location in the Cheras neighborhood of Kuala Lumpur in September 2021. The number itself matters less than what it represents: a growing recognition among Malaysians that chronic knee pain does not have to mean surgery, painkillers for life, or simply learning to live with it.
Dr. Hareez's path to founding the clinic began with watching someone he loved suffer. His mother lived with knee pain for years, and as time passed, the simple acts of daily life—walking, climbing stairs, even kneeling to pray—became sources of dread. He accompanied her to treatment appointments repeatedly, only to watch doctors hand her bottles of medication that numbed the pain temporarily but never resolved it. The cycle repeated. The pain returned. Hearing her cry out at night left an imprint on him that would eventually shape his life's work.
That personal experience became the seed of a larger vision. After studying advanced knee treatment technologies in Korea, Japan, Turkey, and other countries, Dr. Hareez became convinced that Malaysia needed access to modern, non-surgical approaches to knee pain—but at prices ordinary people could actually afford. When Klinik Tuah opened in 2021, that commitment became its operating principle. The clinic has since expanded to six branches across Peninsular Malaysia, with additional locations planned for Gombak and Penang. The growth reflects genuine demand: roughly 72 percent of the clinic's patients are aged fifty and above, a population that has long accepted knee pain as an inevitable part of aging.
For decades, the default response to knee pain in Malaysia was surgery or resignation. Patients feared the operating room. They worried about recovery time. They had heard stories. So they took painkillers, sometimes for years, until the pain became so severe that surgery seemed like the only remaining option. What changed was partly technological—regenerative treatments like platelet-rich plasma therapy, hyaluronic acid injections, and other advanced procedures became available—and partly informational. As more Malaysians encountered information about non-surgical options online and through word of mouth, the calculus shifted. People began asking whether there was another way.
Klinik Tuah positioned itself as that other way. The clinic offers diagnostic tools and treatment options that do not require an operating room: PRP therapy, regenerative cell treatment, genicular nerve blocks, sclerotherapy, and radio frequency ablation, among others. Each patient receives a personalized assessment and a clear explanation of what their condition is and what the available treatments can and cannot do. The approach is deliberately patient-centered, built on the premise that people deserve to understand their own bodies and the choices available to them.
The ten-thousand-patient milestone is not the end point. Dr. Hareez and his team have set a new target: thirty-five thousand patients by 2030. That ambition reflects their reading of the landscape. They believe many Malaysians are still living with untreated knee pain—some because they cannot access care, some because they fear it, some because they simply do not know what options exist. The clinic's expansion strategy is gradual but deliberate, designed to make modern knee treatment more widely available without sacrificing the quality of care or the personalized attention that has defined the clinic's reputation.
The underlying logic is straightforward: when pain is well managed, everything else in life improves. A person who can walk without wincing can work more effectively, spend time with family without distraction, pursue activities that matter to them. The clinic's mission, as Dr. Hareez frames it, is not merely to treat symptoms but to help people return to lives that feel full and active. That vision—rooted in a son's memory of his mother's suffering—has carried the clinic from one location to six in five years. Whether it reaches thirty-five thousand patients by 2030 will depend on whether the expansion keeps pace with the demand. For now, the momentum is clear.
Citações Notáveis
After studying advanced knee treatment technologies in Korea, Japan, Turkey, and other countries, the clinic was determined to bring these non-surgical options to Malaysia at prices people could actually afford— Dr. Hareez Noorman, co-founder of Klinik Tuah
For a long time, many patients believed that knee pain was just a normal part of getting older, either fearing surgery or thinking they had no choice besides painkillers or knee replacement— Dr. Hareez Noorman
A Conversa do Hearth Outra perspectiva sobre a história
What made you decide to build a clinic specifically around knee pain, rather than general orthopedics or sports medicine?
I watched my mother live with it for years. Not as a patient observing from the outside, but as someone who heard her pain every night. The treatments she received never actually solved anything. That experience made me realize the problem wasn't just medical—it was systemic. People were afraid, costs were high, and they had no real alternatives to surgery or painkillers.
So you traveled to other countries to study how they approached this differently?
Yes. Korea, Japan, Turkey—places where non-surgical regenerative treatments had become standard. I saw that these technologies worked, and I saw that they could be made affordable. The question became: why wasn't this available in Malaysia at a price people could actually pay?
Seventy-two percent of your patients are over fifty. Does that surprise you?
Not at all. Knee pain is treated as inevitable aging in Malaysia. People assume it's just what happens. They don't realize there are options that can genuinely change their quality of life without surgery. Once they know those options exist, they seek them out.
You're targeting thirty-five thousand patients by 2030. That's a significant jump from ten thousand. How confident are you in that number?
The demand is there. We're not inventing it. The real constraint is access—how many clinics we can open, how many doctors we can train, how quickly we can expand. If we can build the infrastructure, the patients will come.
What does success actually look like to you beyond the numbers?
It's a person who can walk up stairs without thinking about it. Someone who can kneel to pray, or play with their grandchildren, without pain dictating their day. That's what this is about. The numbers matter because they represent lives that have changed.