Bone marrow donors honoured as heroes at event

Non-profit group aims to recruit 50,000 potential donors within three years

By Andrea Ng, The Straits Times, 31 Jan 2015

SENIOR manager Dave Eng was 33 and had just become a father in late 1994 when he was diagnosed with leukaemia, a cancer of the blood cells.

Despite chemotherapy, he had a relapse after Chinese New Year in 1995.

Only one in 10 patients with his strain of leukaemia, or acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, had survived and his only hope lay in a bone marrow transplant, he was told.

He had his hopes for a bone marrow transplant dashed twice before he found a donor in Raffles Junior College student Soh Hooi Peng.

On Aug 31, 1995, Mr Eng emerged from a bone marrow transplant with a new lease of life and the chance to watch his two daughters grow up.

Mr Eng, who is now 53, was not the only one who found hope in a group of selfless Singaporeans.

The Bone Marrow Donor Programme (BMDP) yesterday gathered 34 Singaporean donors to celebrate the acts of these heroes.

Foreign Affairs Minister K. Shanmugam, the guest of honour, said of the donors: "Your courage, selflessness and charity have made all of you heroes whose valorous deeds will be remembered by the family and friends of those you have saved."

He also called on more people in the Malay and Indian communities to sign up with the donor programme.

Currently, the odds of finding a match for a patient are one in 20,000 within the same racial group. The odds are even lower for patients from Malay and Indian communities due to their low representation on the register.

"We need to improve these odds," said Mr Shanmugam, who is also Minister for Law.

The BMDP is a non-profit organisation that builds and manages Singapore's only register of volunteer donors, who can be called up to save the lives of patients with leukaemia and other blood diseases.

Since it was formed in 1993, nearly 500 patients have been given a chance of survival.

The BMDP Celebration of Heroes at Raffles Institution last night also marked the programme's commitment to recruiting 50,000 new donors onto the volunteer bone marrow register within three years, in conjunction with SG50.

"We can't think of a better way for young people to embody the SG50 spirit of community and volunteerism than committing to help a fellow Singaporean in their hour of greatest need by providing a life-saving bone marrow donation," said BMDP chief executive officer Jane Prior.

Her son had also needed a bone marrow transplant when he was diagnosed with leukaemia.

The gathering set a record in the Singapore Book of Records for the largest gathering of heroes.

The donors also received a plaque from Mr Shanmugam.

Ms Shalini Nair, 30, was one of them.

The diagnostic radiographer had been a regular blood donor since she was 18, but signed up as a bone marrow donor in 2008 after picking up a pamphlet on one of her blood donation visits.

In 2011, Ms Nair received a call informing her she was a match for a patient. She donated her bone marrow a few months later.

"Getting a match is very rare and I count it a blessing to be able to (have an) impact (on) someone," she said. "One day's worth of discomfort is nothing compared to several years of another person's life changed."

The BMDP, which currently has 48,000 donors on the register, also works to bring together strangers who are linked in the deepest way.

On Aug 31, 1996, exactly one year after Mr Eng had his transplant, he met his donor, Ms Soh, for the first time in a Chinese restaurant in Temasek Club. An emotional Mr Eng could only say: "Wow, my hero, the one who saved me."

Last friday was an evening where we celebrated those who have stepped forward to help save lives of our recipients. We...
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