Sabahans urged to pledge organs and help save lives
Published on: Sunday, October 16, 2016
Kota Kinabalu: More Sabahans have been urged to step forward to pledge their organs and help save lives.Since 1997 until October this year, only 13,448 people, which is less than 0.5 per cent of Sabah's population, had pledged to donate their organs.Sabah is ranked eighth in the country accounting for just 3.71 per cent of the 362,667 pledgers who have been registered in the country over the past 19 years.ADVERTISEMENT Public Awareness Action Committee on Organ Donation chairman, Tan Sri Lee Lam Thye, however, said the number did not include the new pledgers registered during the Street Campaign held in conjunction with National Organ Donation Week that was held simultaneously in all states in the country on Oct 8."The event on Oct 8 has successfully registered 7,511 new pledges in a single day. While in Sabah, on the same day, this street campaign which was done in 16 locations, netted a total of 992 people pledging their organs," he said to reporters after flagging off participants of the 6km Fun Walk for Organ 2016 in conjunction with National Organ Donation Awareness Week 2016 at the State Museum, here, Saturday.A total of 1,083 people participated in the event organised by the Tissue and Organ Procurement team, Queen Elizabeth Hospital II, in collaboration with the Sabah Regional Transplant Procurement Management Unit.The event aimed to promote a healthy lifestyle and prevention of chronic diseases that will eventually lead to organ dysfunction such as kidneys and also to increase awareness on organ donation among the people of Sabah.ADVERTISEMENT Although the statistics of pledges showed an increase, Lee, whose committee comes under the Health Ministry, said there was still much to be done to continue to raise awareness and attract more people to become pledgers.This is because the number of people in Malaysia on the wait list for donors was 20,774 as of August this year, he said.
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"We hope with these new pledges, we can increase the number of actual donors and make their hope of becoming actual donors become a reality and the number of patients in the wait list to reduce," he said.According to Lee, the total number of actual organ and tissue donors to date was 597, 12 of whom were Sabahans. This year alone, he said, there were 26 actual donors of organs and tissues throughout the country with one of them coming from Sabah.Lee also advised the pledgers especially the young generation to inform their parents or next of kin of their decision and get the support.According State Health Director Datuk Dr Christina Rundi, the National Organ Donation Week 2016 that began on Oct 8 until Saturday saw a total of 2,500 people in Sabah deciding to pledge their organs, adding to the total of 5,056 for this year alone. She noted that this was the biggest number of pledgers registered in one year exceeding last year's 3,190."This is a proud achievement," she said.Meanwhile, Regional Transplant Procurement Unit manager, Dr Cheah Phee Kheng, said there were 24 hospitals in Sabah and Labuan that manage organ donation activities.Stay up-to-date by following Daily Express’s Telegram channel.
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Specialist hospitals, namely Queen Elizabeth Hospital I and II, Sabah Women and Children's Hospital, Likas, Duchess of Kent Hospital in Sandakan, Tawau, Lahad Datu, Keningau and Labuan are currently equipped and able to perform organ and tissue procurement should the need arise, he said."District hospitals or hospitals without specialists are able to perform procurement for cases of tissue donations," he added.