KUALA LUMPUR – The critical issue hampering Malaysia’s organ transplant system is not a lack of specialists, but a shortage of available organs, according to former Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah.
Responding to questions regarding the state of the country’s organ transplant services, Noor Hisham described the situation as a “catch-22,” where the demand for specialists and facilities exists, but the scarcity of organs hinders the development of expertise in this area.
“Organ transplant is limited, and we cannot build expertise and transplant institutions when there are not enough organs to be harvested,” he said.
Despite more than 380,000 individuals pledging to be donors, there remains a significant gap between these pledges and actual donations.
While many are willing to become donors, families often refuse to allow hospitals to proceed with organ harvesting after the donor’s passing.
“We have a high number of those who pledged to donate, but when the day comes, the families refuse to allow,” Noor Hisham explained.
Previously, on September 24, Scoop reported on problems faced by the Health Ministry’s organ transplantation system, citing comments from patients.
Dialysis patient Siva Kumar Raghavan, who has been waiting eight years for a kidney transplant, said that the whole healthcare ecosystem, from donation pledges to the need for more medical specialists in the field, requires an overhaul.
Meanwhile, World Health Organisation patient advocate Manvir Victor said the Health Ministry has failed to disseminate clear information to patients on the processes and systems that are in place for organ transplants, effectively denying those in need of transplantation procedures from accessing the medical services needed from government facilities.
Statistics on organ donation and transplantation in Malaysia show that there are 9,254 patients currently on the transplant waiting list, as of June 2024, according to the National Transplant Resource Centre (NTRC) which is under the Health Ministry.
Of the total on the waiting list, 8,828 are adults and 398 are children, all waiting for kidneys.
While there are a total of 388,646 organ donor pledgers since 1997, only 924 donors have died since 1976, and only 2,913 organ and tissue donations have been made since 1976.
Since 1975, only 3,198 transplant surgeries have been conducted in the country, according to NTRC. – October 3, 2024