Former millionaire turned beggar Ding Guofu set off yesterday to Changsha in Hunan Province in the hopes that one more operation will help his disabled son move one step closer to self reliance.

He took along more than 10,000 yuan (US$1,246) to cover the medical fees, half of which was donated by a local expatriate and her Chinese friend on Saturday, who were touched by the father and son's story.

Ding, who hails from Yichun in Heilongjiang Province, arrived in Shanghai earlier this year seeking better medical care for his 17-year-old son.

But to his disappointment, several renowned hospitals said they couldn't guarantee they could help his son recover from cerebral paralysis, Ding said.

The boy, Ding Shuang, will undergo surgery at an army hospital in Changsha to fix spasms in his left arm.

It will be performed by a doctor who have done two operations for free or at discounted price and helped extend his other limbs.

"There might be some change of the operation and I can't decide until I see him," said doctor Jiang Honghe, a renowned orthopedic surgeon.

Jiang said the cost for the operation has not been decided yet, although he had talked with the hospital authorities about a discount.

Just one day before Ding's journey, Vibeke Nielsen-Wendt, a woman from Denmark, along with her son and daughter, visited Ding's residence, a shabby room on Xiacheng Road, with a basket of daily necessities like a toothbrush and T-shirts, a picture painted by her 4-year-old son Carl and 5,000 yuan for the poor boy. Her friend Sara Jun Zhe contributed another 1,000 yuan.

Ding's family once owned a timber transport business in Yichun. But the family's fortunes changed when Ding was disabled in 1994 after he fell off a moving truck.