Time to Donate

Saturday October 23, 2010

Donor registration forms now available at selected post offices

By LEE YUK PENG and QISHIN TARIQ
newsdesk@thestar.com.my

KUALA LUMPUR: The people can now get organ donor registration forms at selected post offices.
The project is a collaboration between Pos Malaysia Berhad and the Health Ministry in conjunction with the ministry’s Organ Donation Awareness Week running from Oct 16 to 24.
The ministry appointed Pos Malaysia as an agent to enable Malaysians to obtain donor registration forms at 19 post offices, and plans to extend the service to more post offices in the near future.

Detailed information: Yusasnita Mohd Yusof, 22, reading details of the organ donation form at Pos Malaysia in Jalan Telawi, Bangsar, Kuala Lumpur Friday.

Pos Malaysia group managing director and chief executive officer Datuk Syed Faisal Albar said the outlets selected were general post offices (GPOs) and post offices in the Klang Valley with a high volume of customers.
Participating GPOs include Kuala Lumpur, Shah Alam, Kuala Terengganu, Alor Setar and Kuching. The post offices in the Klang Valley include the ones in Medan Tuanku, Gombak, Bangsar, Kelana Jaya and Kampung Tunku.
“Currently, more than 147,092 people have pledged to donate their organs and we believe many more are willing to pledge,” said Faisal.
The organ donation registration forms are specially-made postcards with the organ donor pledge card attached.
Customers only need to fill the form and mail it with a 60 sen stamp to the National Transplant Resource Centre. They also need to keep the donor card.
According to the centre’s website, the number of pledgers in Malaysia has steadily increased over the last few years, with 15,255 new pledges in 2009, up from 11,605 in 2008 and 8,890 the year before.
Selangor has the highest recorded number of pledgers, with a total of 29,940 as of August 2010.
National Transplant Resource Centre (NTRC) head Datin Dr Lela Yasmin Mansor lauded the move, saying that one of the major complaints from the public was the difficulty in obtaining forms to sign up as organ pledgers.
“With the pledge forms available at designated post offices, the public will be able to sign up easily,” she said in an interview.
Dr Lela said post office staff could help in filling up the forms and answer frequently-asked questions as well.
“The people can also sign up while paying their bills or sending letters. There is also a designated box for the public to drop the forms after filling them without having to mail them back to the NTRC,” she said.
She said the increasing the number of pledgers would help create more awareness about the matte