SEREMBAN, MALAYSIA: With only one in 20 Malaysians willing to
donate their organs, a massive campaign will be launched soon by the
Health Ministry to increase awareness on organ donation.
Minister Datuk Liow Tiong Lai said the campaign aimed to get more
people to sign up as organ donors.
"It is sad because critically-ill patients have to wait for years
to get a donor. We want people to know that we can save lives if
they are prepared to donate their organs," he told reporters
yesterday after launching the third National Health and Morbidity
Survey Scientific Conference: State Findings here.
He said that despite campaigns by the Government to educate the
people on the importance of becoming donors, most were reluctant to
do so.
To date, 120,838 people have pledged to become donors.
According to the National Transplant Resource Centre, 4,181
patients are on the waiting list for kidney, heart and lung
transplants.
Statistics also show that one in three patients on the waiting
list dies before a donor is found.
However, Liow said the Government had no plans to compel people
to donate their organs, unlike Singapore which passed a law making
its citizens automatic organ donors.
Liow said those who wished to become donors could enlist at any
government hospital or clinic and was looking for ways to make it
easier for them to do so.
He said the Cabinet had recently approved the need for a
masterplan to help the increasing number of cancer patients and
educate the people on the disease.
Liow said the National Cancer Management Blueprint would chart
the ministry's plan to deal with cancer patients till 2015 where
ministry officers would educate people about cancer as most patients
came for treatment when they were already in the advanced
stages.
Liow also said that his ministry's plans to get more females over
20 to go for mammograms and pap smears was also working as the
percentage of women who went for mammograms increased from 3.7% in
1996 to 7.9% in 2006.
About 45.7% of women had gone for pap smear tests compared with
26% in 1996.
This article was originally published in theStar Online.
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