Mass coverage on organ donation

I just got back from my tv interview on organ donation. It went pretty much as I expected. My only regret is the time constraint. Personally, an hour would be more decent to talk on a "heavy" issue like this.

In any case, if anyone notices, there seems to be a lot of happenings vis-a-vis organ donation this week. The media seems to give a lot of attention to this issue these past few days.

It began with the death of 18-year old Mohd Fikry Fadzail in Alor Setar. Because he suffered from severe head injuries, he was pronounced brain dead. His family donated 4 organs - heart valve, liver, kidneys and corneas.

Reader's Digest Asia meanwhile, as blogged elsewhere here, also carries a story on this issue. In conjunction with this, Reader's Digest along with the National Transplant Resource Centre (NTRC) and Institut Jantung Negara (IJN) launched a drive to increase the number of organ pledgers.

Then, there was the story of 13-year old Tee Hui Yin who is waiting for a new heart. For the first time, her picture was shown to the public on Wednesday.

This was followed the following day with Utusan Malaysia headlining on the importance of organ donation. The news item can be read here whereby it states that 9,000 people are waiting to get new kidneys.

And today, I was on air talking about this issue as a result of the headline in Utusan Malaysia. We fielded questions on air, and to me, everywhere I go, the questions remain the same. From my point of view, the level of sensitivities, emotions and misconceptions still remain high. Something needs to be done to change this.

While the media will continue to highlight this issue now and again, what is imperative is for us to look at organ donation rationally, intellectually and factually. Herein lies our greatest challenge, for we are all sensitive and emotional.