Dr Annuar (third right), Dr Kamarudin (second right) and Dr Davis (third left) showing the signed pledge card as others look on.
BINTULU: Only 12,779 persons have pledged to donate their organs in Sarawak, constituting only 3.2 per cent of the 397,476 pledgers in the country as of September this year.
Assistant Minister of Housing and Public Health Dr Annuar Rapaee, who is also Assistant Minister of Education and Technological Research, said the statistics show that Sarawak is still way behind in terms of awareness of the importance of organ transplants.
Comparatively, he said, Selangor has 79,919 pledgers or 20.1 per cent of the number of organ pledgers in the country.
Thus, he hoped that the state-level Organ Donation Awareness Week 2017 could instil greater awareness of organ transplant among the public.
He said statistics from the National Transplant Resource Centre, from 2005 to 2017 the Ministry of Health has received 560 kidneys, 77 livers, 31 hearts and 10 lungs for patients at the end stage of organ failure.
“It is important for families or relatives of these patients who need organ transplants to pledge as organ donors to reduce the risk of complications,” he said when officiating at the closing of the state-level Organ Donation Awareness Week 2017 programme here yesterday.
“It’s not easy to convince the people to pledge, even health staff themselves on organ transplant due to lack of awareness but don’t give up and we have to continue promoting and attracting people especially the young generation to pledge as organ donors.
“Even in religions, organ donation is allowed as long as it is done properly as the best way for medical treatment, the last option for survival of patients,” he said.
In a press conference later, Dr Annuar said apart from increasing the number of pledgers, other medical facilities need to be built and upgraded.
“When you talk about our target, we want to have as many as possible, not just pledgers but other facilities, because in Malaysia not all hospitals have the capacity to carry out organ transplant procedure,” he said.
However, he believed that systematic and continuous awareness programmes including counselling would change public perception and the number of pledgers would increase.
Also present at the press conference were deputy state health director Dr Kamarudin Lajim and Bintulu Hospital director Dr Davis Johnraj.