Singapore's oldest living kidney donor

Dad donates kidney to son - at age 79
By Toh Yong Chuan, Senior Correspondent, The Straits Times, 21 Mar 2018

Mr Wong Siak Wan has built structures with a blowtorch, welding helmet and steady hands for more than 60 years.

The 81-year-old has welded undersea oil pipes and covered walkways in Housing Board estates, and even built his own fish tank from metal bars and glass panels.

But about three years ago, he had to confront a problem that his decades of welding experience could not fix.

His son Jack, then 45, had kidney failure.

He solved the problem by donating one of his kidneys to Jack. He was 79.



The act made him the oldest living kidney donor in Singapore, a record that the Ministry of Health confirmed this week.

The soft-spoken Mr Wong was uncomfortable being under the spotlight when The Straits Times interviewed him this week.

"What I did, any parent would have done," he said in Mandarin. "Which parent would bear to see their children suffer?"

Living donor not at higher risk of kidney failure: Study

By Carolyn Khew. The Straits Times, 30 Nov 2016

A kidney donor may have only one kidney after a transplant but it continues to function well, with four in 10 regaining 75 per cent of their pre-donation kidney function after five years.

In fact, donors lead healthy lives and are not at a higher risk of kidney failure or dying compared to the general population, according to a new study conducted by researchers from Singapore General Hospital (SGH) and Duke-NUS Medical School - believed to be the largest of its kind in South-east Asia.

The study looked at about 180 living kidney donors at SGH from 1976 to 2012. These patients had an average follow-up period of 11 years during which doctors looked at their blood pressure, urine test and kidney function during medical check-ups. It was also noted that kidney function in donors also stabilised after about a decade.

Which is why authors of the study are hoping that their findings will persuade more to consider being a living donor.

"The kidney function is actually not declining. We've removed your kidney but the kidney function tends to gradually increase... It's a very gradual, slow process and then it tends to stabilise. After stabilising, there will not be a dip," said Duke-NUS Programme in Health Services' Professor Tazeen H. Jafar, who was involved in the study.

Singapore is among the top five countries in the world with the highest incidence rates of kidney failure. In the last reported figures from the Renal Registry, 1,730 people suffered from kidney failure in 2014.

Kidney transplant from a live donor remains the best option for patients with end-stage kidney failure. Patients who undergo a transplant tend to have higher survival rates than those who undergo dialysis.

However, the latest figures from the National Organ Transplant Unit, Ministry of Health, show that while the waiting list for kidney transplants was 310 for the first half of this year, the number of kidney transplants from living donors stood at 16 as of the same period.

Singapore in need of local skin donors

Many not aware skin can be donated upon death and that donated skin can save lives
By Seow Bei Yi, The Straits Times, 15 Aug 2016

More people in Singapore are donating their skin but there is still a shortage of local donors for those who need grafts after serious burns.

Locally donated skin comprised just 18 per cent of skin transplants last year. The deficiency, thus far, has been met by tissue banks abroad such as the Euro Skin Bank and others in the United States or Canada.

But this means Singapore may find itself short of skin at any point, when these nations have to meet their own needs following crises such as massive fires.

Now, the Singapore General Hospital (SGH), which houses the local skin bank, aims to raise the proportion of locally donated skin to more than 50 per cent in the near future.

It said it will continue working with the National Organ Transplant Unit and Health Ministry to raise awareness of the importance of skin donation but gave no further details.

One key challenge is that skin donation is not covered by the Human Organ Transplant Act, under which organs such as kidneys may be harvested unless people opt out.

Interested skin donors must opt in or have their skin donated by their next-of-kin upon death. But relatives often do not feel comfortable doing so.

Last year, 13 of 220 patients admitted to SGH for burns had injuries affecting over 40 per cent of their body, requiring donor skin.

Such a patient usually needs more than what one donor can provide, and yet, there were just three Singapore donors in 2013. This jumped to 18 two years later.

First in Singapore to donate liver to stranger

Liver donor's gift saves 16-year-old's life
Singapore’s first altruistic non-directed liver donation
By Linette Lai, The Straits Times, 21 Jun 2016

Nearly 30 years ago, before the Human Organ Transplant Act made organ donation the default in the event of a person's death, Mr Lim Kok Seng signed up to be an organ donor.

Twenty years later, he started volunteering for clinical drug trials to help advance medical science.

And in January last year, the 54-year-old security concierge decided to take things a step further, by coming forward to donate part of his liver to whoever on the national waiting list needed it most.

That turned out to be 16-year-old Lim Si Jia, whose own liver was unable to break down a compound called glycogen properly.

Following 10-hour surgery at the National University Hospital on March 24 this year, Mr Lim became the first non-directed liver donor in Singapore's 26 years of carrying out liver transplants.

Left untreated, Si Jia's condition could lead to cancerous tumours forming on her liver and prove fatal in the long run.



Professor Krishnakumar Madhavan, co-director of the National University Centre for Organ Transplantation, said the majority of living organ donations worldwide are directed - that is, the donor has a specific recipient in mind. Said Prof Madhavan: "This is the first time in our experience with somebody who steps up and says, 'I want to donate; it doesn't matter to whom.'"

Mr Lim, who simply wanted to be able to help someone, decided not to wait until after his death to donate his liver because he was not sure whether it would still be in good working order by then.

Organ donations remain low despite changes to law

Average wait for kidney transplant still 9 to 10 years, and 1 to 2 years for liver or heart
By Janice Tai, The Straits Times, 23 May 2016

Singaporeans are still not donating their organs despite several legislative changes made over the years to enlarge the donor pool.

"The numbers of deceased organ transplantation for kidney, heart and liver (have) remained low for the past 10 years," said a Ministry of Health (MOH) spokesman.

There were 58 such organ transplants last year, compared with 69 in 2006, the latest figures from the National Organ Transplant Unit show. These numbers are a far cry from those in other developed countries such as Spain and Norway, which have eight times the number of cadaveric kidneys for every million people.

Donations from living donors - which are much better for recipients than cadaveric organ donations - have seen only modest growth. Last year, 58 people donated their kidneys and livers, up from 34 in 2006.

Despite legislative changes, such as including Muslims as donors, the average wait for a kidney is still nine to 10 years and one to two years for a liver or heart. Many people with heart and liver failure here die each year, and thousands with kidney failure are on dialysis.

The availability of organs for transplantation is influenced by factors such as public awareness, and societal views and religious beliefs, said the MOH spokesman.

"Even with legislation aimed at improving deceased organ donations, there is a need to continuously engage the public to raise awareness about the issues around organ donation and transplantation, including the benefits of transplantation," she added.

Last year, 334 people were on the waiting list for kidney transplants, with 54 people waiting for a liver and 23 for a heart.

NKF to build $12m mega dialysis centre in Jurong; Newest dialysis centre in Jurong West offers nocturnal dialysis

It will offer 24-hour dialysis, boosting access for patients and easing load of other centres
By Linette Lai, The Straits Times, 30 Mar 2016

To cope with rapidly rising kidney failure numbers here, the National Kidney Foundation (NKF) is building its largest dialysis centre - a $12 million complex in Jurong with 24-hour dialysis, dedicated to kidney care.

The new facility, 10 times the size of regular centres, is expected to have 200 dialysis stations and will cater to 2,000 patients a week, taking the load off the foundation's 29 other centres - particularly those in the west that are nearly full.

Adding a night dialysis slot enables centres to expand capacity, and also makes going for dialysis more convenient for patients with busy day jobs.

NKF is the main dialysis provider here, and nearly all of its 3,800 or so patients have high blood pressure, while three-quarters have diabetes. Both conditions are on the rise in Singapore, and are also leading causes of kidney failure here.

According to the latest Singapore Renal Registry Report, there were 5,521 people on dialysis in 2013, up from 5,244 the year before. It is the only option apart from a transplant, and patients must undergo the procedure for life.

Apart from dialysis, the Corporation Road complex, likely to open in phases starting next year, will teach patients how to carry out peritoneal dialysis - a special form of dialysis that can be done at home.

Plans for the centre were announced by Deputy Prime Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam yesterday, at the opening of the NKF's first 24-hour dialysis centre in Jurong West, which gives patients more flexibility to choose when they want treatment.

Of the yet-to-open facility, he said it "will greatly expand access to subsidised haemodialysis services to the renal patients in the western region".

He noted, too, that NKF must go beyond offering dialysis services and tackle the problem at its root, through better education and prevention programmes to curb the onset of kidney diseases.

First paired kidney exchange transplant in Singapore

Mum donates kidney to patient on wait list so daughter can get matching organ from stranger
By Linette Lai, The Straits Times, 1 Mar 2016

When doctors said her daughter needed a new kidney, Madam Noor Rafidah Nasir immediately volunteered one of her own.

But then came the bad news - Madam Rafidah and her daughter, Ms Siti Rasyidah Lokman Hadan, were not a match.

"I was heartbroken," recalled the 47-year-old housewife. "I cried."

Twenty-three-year-old Siti Rasyidah binte Lokman Hadan was given a new lease of life following Singapore’s first living...
Posted by National University Hospital on Tuesday, March 1, 2016

Then doctors approached her in August 2014 with a novel proposal known as a paired kidney exchange transplant.

Someone had come forward wanting to donate a kidney to a stranger, and was found to be a match for Ms Siti. In exchange, her mother would have to give one of her kidneys to a person on the national waiting list.

Ms Siti, 23, became Singapore's first recipient of such a transplant in April last year, at the National University Hospital (NUH).

The procedure has been approved since 2009, but has never been carried out until last year because of a lack of pairs who were both willing and medically fit.

Disfigured firefighter gets new face in historic transplant

The Straits Times, 18 Nov 2015

NEW YORK • A New York medical centre has carried out the most complex and comprehensive face transplant to date, on a firefighter horribly disfigured in 2001.

More than 100 doctors, nurses and medical staff took part in the 26-hour operation on Aug 14 to 15 at NYU Langone Medical Centre, after more than a year of preparation.

The recipient was Mr Patrick Hardison, 41, from Mississippi. As a volunteer firefighter in 2001, he suffered extensive facial burns when the roof of a burning home collapsed on top of him during a rescue search. He lost his eyelids, ears, lips, most of his nose, hair and eyebrows.



Dr Eduardo Rodriguez led the surgery to give Mr Hardison a new face, scalp, ears, ear canals, and selected portions of bone from the chin, cheeks and nose. He was also given new eyelids and muscles that control blinking, as he was previously unable to shut his eyes completely. These were key steps to sparing his blue eyes from blindness that previously seemed all but inevitable, Dr Rodriguez said on Monday.

Mr Hardison came to Dr Rodriguez after more than 70 previous surgeries, after a fellow firefighter in Mississippi wrote to the doctor who had performed an earlier face transplant in Maryland in 2012.

But he had to wait for more than a year for a donor, someone with the right age, height, weight, skin and hair colour and similar bone structure, and whose family would agree.

That suddenly happened in August, when Mr David Rodebaugh, a 26-year-old award-winning BMX cyclist who lived in Brooklyn, died in a road accident. His mother agreed to organ donation.

Inspiring tale of ex-radio presenter

Book recounts her journey from denial to positivity after end-stage kidney failure
By Priscilla Goy, The Sunday Times, 5 Oct 2015

Madam Jamilah Yusop, 61, used to go to the gym thrice a week.

She now goes for dialysis thrice a week, after being diagnosed with end-stage kidney failure last year, which means she needs dialysis for the rest of her life.

Her journey from denial to despair and now, positivity, is documented in her book titled Berat Mata Memandang (No Matter How Heavy It Looks, in Malay).

The former Warna 94.2FM radio presenter said she was shocked when she first heard in 2012 that she had "kidney problems".

Denial and inaction worsened her condition. She saw a sinseh instead of her nephrologist but, after six months, she woke up one day breathless and with her face puffy.

"The thought sank into me then that I should have seen the nephrologist earlier," she said. She started going for dialysis in 2013.

Despite her illness, she tries to lead a normal life, playing with her three-year-old granddaughter, reading the news, and meeting friends and other kidney patients.

Her 67-page book, which she self-published in August, was initially meant for her family to remember her, but she later decided to print 1,000 copies to encourage others."Hopefully, if other kidney patients are in the same boat as me, when they read this, they will understand and say 'If Jamilah can do it, why can't I do it?'" she said.

Yesterday, the Muslim Kidney Action Association (MKAC) presented her with the MKAC Courage Award at its 25th anniversary high tea at Furama City Centre hotel. It plans to give the book to its new kidney patients for free.

Madam Halimah Yacob, who will be re-nominated as Speaker of Parliament, yesterday lauded MKAC for its work in supporting kidney patients and their families.

National disease registry statistics show that although Malays account for 13.3 per cent of the population, they made up 24.5 per cent of people on dialysis last year.

A new dialysis patient every 5 hours

Kidney failure rates on the rise as S'poreans get more obese, don't keep diabetes in check
By Salma Khalik, Senior Health Correspondent, The Sunday Times, 10 May 2015

Kidney failure rates here continue to rise. Every five hours, one person in Singapore needs a transplant or has to start dialysis.

Last year, about 1,730 people lost the use of their kidneys, up from 1,657 in 2013, latest figures from the Renal Registry show.

The reason? Singaporeans are getting more obese and more are suffering from diabetes, the main cause of kidney failure when not kept in check.

Professor A. Vathsala, head of nephrology at the National University Hospital, said that so long as diabetics are not doing their best to control the progression of the disease, the number of kidney failures will keep rising - a trend that has persisted for more than a decade.

In 2002, 728 people had end-stage kidney disease - about 1,000 fewer than last year. Today, in spite of medication, only 40 per cent of diabetics are able to keep their blood sugar levels in check. "This means six in 10 don't meet their target," Prof Vathsala said.

Dr Chionh Chang Yin, head of renal medicine at Changi General Hospital (CGH), calls diabetes an epidemic that needs a concerted approach at multiple levels.

"It begins with health policies and movements against poor dietary habits, obesity and sedentary lifestyle, which contribute to the diabetes epidemic," he said.

Early detection and control of the condition are key to preventing complications such as kidney failure, he noted.

The Renal Registry's interim report for 1999-2014 said a total of 5,912 people were receiving dialysis at the end of last year - about 500 more than in 2013.

To deal with the rising numbers, at least one new dialysis centre had to be set up every year for the past few years. It noted that most who turned to dialysis were Chinese (67 per cent) but "the proportion had increased among Malays (from 16.6 per cent in 1999 to 24.5 per cent last year) and Indians (from 6.2 per cent in 1999 to 8.8 per cent last year)".

Monk at centre of Ren Ci scandal donates kidney

Ming Yi had surgery in April to give organ to stranger
By Aw Cheng Wei, The Straits Times, 6 May 2015

THE VENERABLE Ming Yi was once famous for his daredevil stunts on television to raise funds for the charity he founded - Ren Ci Hospital.

But since his September 2010 release - after serving four months on four charges, including granting an unauthorised loan to his personal assistant - he has been keeping his good deeds low-key.

However, last week it was revealed that the 53-year-old had recently donated a kidney to a stranger, only discovering after his operation that the beneficiary was a young woman.

News broke after he applied for leave from Foo Hai Chan Monastery last month for the operation, though he had been preparing for it for 18 months.

At a press conference yesterday, the 53-year-old abbot of the temple in Geylang East said in Mandarin: "I had wanted to keep the donation quiet... but news caught on quickly."

He added that he decided to hold the conference after reporters approached him to ask for an interview when he was recovering in hospital.

Ven Ming Yi said he kept his donation quiet and "did not tell a soul until the green light was given by doctors".

"I did not want anyone to worry for me unnecessarily until I was scheduled to make the donation," he added. "I wanted to keep it low-key because it is personal."

The idea of donating his kidney came after he read in 2013 that there was a shortage of donors, with four people a day contracting kidney disease in Singapore.

Dream lives on with daughter's liver donation

By Sanjay Nair, The Sunday Times, 3 May 2015

For more than a decade, Mr Zainol Abidin Omar's life was one of routine, repetition and respect for Singapore football.

As a kit man, or equipment manager, first at the Singapore Sports School, then for the national Under-23 team, he looked after the jerseys, set up the training equipment and offered fatherly advice to the likes of Shahfiq Ghani, Shakir Hamzah and Al-Qaasimy Rahman.

A constant but often unnoticed presence on the touchlines, "Encik Zainol" - as the players called him - watched them grow from wide-eyed kids to full internationals. It was close to a dream job for the 56-year-old former semi-professional player.

Then tragedy struck in February last year. He had frequent spells of vomiting blood and dizziness, but was afraid to tell anyone - even his wife of 32 years, Roswati.

His health worsened and, in June, he was diagnosed with liver cancer. Doctors gave him six months to live.

"My liver was gone but my heart broke as well - I don't drink, I don't smoke, I felt I didn't deserve this," an emotional Mr Zainol, who has five children and three grandchildren, told The Sunday Times.

"The first thing on my mind was 'Who would take care of my family?'. My second thought was 'I'm not going to be able to see the Under-23s play at the SEA Games'."

He lost 10kg as he underwent chemotherapy. Too weak to even walk at times, he was forced to step away from football and his part-time transport business.

To keep his spirits up, he would look through three thick photo albums of past Young Lions matches and overseas trips.

Then he got his life back again. Ms Nurul Jannah, 25, one of his four daughters, was found to be a suitable organ donor and readily agreed to give 70 per cent of her liver to her ailing father.

"It was not a difficult decision. I would do anything to see him happy, just as he has done for us," said the administrative assistant.

The head transplant: Stranger than fiction

By Andy Ho, Senior Writer, The Straits Times, 25 Apr 2015

DR SERGIO Canavero, a controversial surgeon in Italy, wants to attempt a head transplant by attaching the head of one person onto another person's body.

He announced recently that he has a volunteer - Mr Valery Spiridonov, 30, a Russian computer scientist who is afflicted with Werdnig-Hoffman disease and confined to a wheelchair.

This disease is an inherited condition with no cure and inevitably fatal. The patient suffers progressive muscle wasting and weakness in the arms and legs. The limbs and trunk become feeble and floppy while breathing, swallowing and feeding may be difficult. The body fails progressively even as the mind stays crystal clear.



But for the breakthrough surgery to happen, Mr Spiridonov needs someone to donate a whole body.

The ideal donor would be a man who is brain-dead and closely matched for age, size and blood group. Transplanting Mr Spiridonov's head onto the donor's body would make him the recipient of the donor's body.

This seems a macabre twist to organ transplantation as we know it, but can it be done? And if the procedure is actually feasible, would the post-transplant individual who survives be Mr Spiridonov?

NKF to raise subsidies to encourage home-based peritoneal dialysis

Peritoneal dialysis is more convenient and healthier, but many patients still averse to it
By Janice Tai, The Sunday Times, 15 Feb 2015

It is more convenient and healthier to undergo dialysis at home - yet kidney patients in Singapore are reluctant to embrace this.

And that is why the National Kidney Foundation (NKF) intends to further raise subsidies to encourage patients to choose home-based peritoneal dialysis - commonly known as water dialysis. Of its 3,400 kidney patients now, just 328 - less than a 10th of the total - are on peritoneal dialysis.

In 2013, the NKF came up with a bag of goodies to encourage home dialysis. It offered vouchers, paid for home renovations and got nurses to do home visits. But only about 100 new peritoneal dialysis patients came on board last year.

At the Kidney Dialysis Foundation (KDF), peritoneal patients have dropped from 70 in 2010 to 38 last year.

NKF senior nurse clinician Tang Woon Hoe said the slow uptake is due to a "confidence issue".

In an NKF survey of 2,000 patients who receive treatment at its centres, the top reasons given for not wanting to make the switch to home treatment was the belief that they could not manage the procedure on their own, or had nobody to help them. There was also a fear of infection.

"But actually, infection rates are low and they can call our staff on standby if they need help," said Ms Tang.

The treatment patients get at centres is called haemodialysis. It involves being hooked up to a machine, which acts like an artificial kidney and filters the patient's blood. It takes up to four hours each time, and patients typically undergo the procedure three times a week.

Peritoneal dialysis involves filling and draining dialysis fluid into and out of the abdominal cavity either four times a day - 45 minutes each time - or overnight.

Not only can patients save the trouble and expense of travelling to a centre, they can also drink and eat more as their dialysis is done more regularly on a daily basis.

It is considered to be gentler on the body as waste materials do not build up but are discharged more frequently.

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 gift of liver and life from someone he knew only casually

By Salma Khalik, Senior Health Correspondent, The Straits Times, 25 Dec 2014

MR ANDY Toh, 49, would not be celebrating Christmas this year if Mr Ralph Chua, 42, had not given him part of his liver.

The duo had been colleagues at Paya Lebar Methodist Church for about a decade, but knew each other only casually as they were in different departments.

Mr Toh, a father of two teenagers, was thus surprised when Mr Chua visited him in hospital in March. He was even more surprised when Mr Chua said as he was leaving: "If you need a live donor, let me know."

Mr Toh had felt a range of emotions - from shock to hope, anger and despair - after he was diagnosed with late-stage liver failure in October last year. By then, his liver was badly scarred and hardening as a result of hepatitis B.

His wife, siblings and 18-year-old son were all found to be unsuitable as donors. Only his daughter Bernice was a match.

Although scared, she wanted to help. But at 16, she was too young as donors had to be at least 21.

Dr Thwin Maung Aye, a consultant at the National University Centre for Organ Transplantation, said Mr Toh also had complications such as recurrent fluid accumulation in the tummy. His "overall prognosis and survival would have been poor" if he did not have a transplant, he added.

On May 15, the transplant was carried out. Dr Thwin said Mr Toh responded very well and his other medical problems were resolved after the liver transplant.

The operation left Mr Chua with less than half of his liver, but this usually regenerates.

Procedure lets father give son new lease of life: ABO-incompatible transplant

It allows people to donate organs to those with incompatible blood groups
By Kash Cheong, The Straits Times, 29 Nov 2014

POLYTECHNIC student Mohamed Zarif Maarof was 18 when he found out he had kidney disease. That was in 2012.

"I was shocked, I used to run and play soccer so I thought I was healthy," he said.

The teenager had to give up evening outings with friends so he could be home by 8pm for his daily dialysis sessions.

His sleep was often disrupted because he had to attach a tube to his stomach to allow for water dialysis throughout the night.

His father, Mr Mohamed Maarof Ghani, a supermarket branch manager, said: "It was no way for a teenager to live. He still has a bright future."

The 49-year-old decided to donate a kidney to Zarif but their blood groups are incompatible.

However, thanks to a procedure called an ABO-incompatible transplant, Mr Maarof was able to donate a kidney to save his son in April.

Zarif was 19 when the transplant was carried out at the National University Hospital (NUH), making him the youngest person in Singapore to have gone through this procedure. He is now 20.

A bus on the road to save kidneys

NKF bus to offer free health checks, raise awareness amid rise in kidney failure cases
By Adrian Lim, The Straits Times, 22 Sep 2014

WITH four new cases of kidney failure diagnosed every day in Singapore, the National Kidney Foundation (NKF) launched an educational bus yesterday which will take to the road to raise awareness about prevention.

It will tour schools, community centres and religious organisations over the next year, in a bid to reach out to 50,000 people.

On board the bus, visitors can learn about the importance of kidneys, what causes them to fail, as well as the treatment options, through interactive touchscreen games and videos.

Free health screenings will also be offered. Besides measuring cholesterol and blood glucose levels, the screenings will include a serum creatinine test to indicate the health of a person's kidneys.

The number of kidney failure cases diagnosed each day here has risen by a third since 2010. According to the United States Renal Data System, Singapore had the world's fifth highest rate of kidney failure in 2012, behind Mexico, the US, Taiwan and Japan.

Health Minister Gan Kim Yong said yesterday that the foundation must go beyond providing blood dialysis treatments to raising community awareness and getting people to eat and live in a healthier manner. The foundation must also look into ways to provide more support for peritoneal dialysis -a home-based treatment in which the body's abdominal lining is used as a filter - and promote kidney transplant as another treatment option.

Speaking at an NKF outreach event held at ITE College East, Mr Gan said diabetes and hypertension are the two leading causes of kidney failure here.

Worrying number of new dialysis patients are Malays

NKF and MUIS take kidney disease awareness programmes to mosques

By Linette Lai, The Straits Times, 1 Apr 2014

MORE of Singapore's new dialysis patients are turning out to be Malays, a worrying trend that has driven the National Kidney Foundation (NKF) to take action.

It has teamed up with the Islamic Religious Council of Singapore (MUIS) to reach out to Malays at mosques to educate them about kidney disease.

One of their first moves is to introduce posters on the need to eat healthily.

Health talks and health screenings are also to be conducted at the mosques, which are important meeting points for the community.

In addition, the NKF hopes its newest Malay board member who joined this year, cardiologist Abdul Razakjr Omar, will help spread the message more effectively.

Kidney failure is a growing problem in Singapore, with new dialysis cases almost doubling in 13 years: 536 in 1999 to 913 in 2012.

Of these, one in six was a Malay in 1999. But by 2012, the proportion had risen to one in four.

The NKF serves about 60 per cent of all dialysis patients in Singapore. Most of the rest go to private dialysis centres.

Last year, 28 per cent of NKF patients were Malays who, however, form only 13 per cent of Singapore's population.

The Chinese, making up three-quarters of the population, formed only two-thirds of the patients.

Although more Indians are on dialysis, the proportion who are patients is still below 10 per cent.

Dr Razakjr, 43, pointed to a lack of knowledge as the prime suspect behind the worrying trend in his community.

He told The Straits Times that many Malays may not know that diabetes can lead to kidney failure. "As such, they are unwilling to affect lifestyle changes to control diabetes better."

Many also do not know that once the kidneys fail, dialysis is inevitable, he said.

31 marathons in 31 days - that's running up support

31-year-old logs 1,302km to raise awareness for Bone Marrow Donor Programme
By Carolyn Khew, The Straits Times, 1 Apr 2014

MOST runners would run a marathon a year, but for Gerrard Lin, today would mark the completion of his 31st marathon in 31 days.

The 31-year-old martial arts instructor ran a full marathon every day under his "March Marathon Madness" campaign, starting on March 2, in a bid to rally more bone marrow donors. "March Madness" also refers to American college basketball championships.

With his race finale today, Mr Lin will have logged a total of 1,302km once he finishes his last marathon around the Tiong Bahru area.

Post by AH SIAO.

He embarked on this endeavour to raise awareness for the Bone Marrow Donor Programme (BMDP) - Singapore's only register of voluntary bone marrow donors - in a bid to encourage more people to step up as donors.

Over the next 10 weeks, he hopes to get 1,302 donors - one donor for every km he ran during the marathon.

Speaking to reporters, supporters and BMDP members after his run yesterday, Mr Lin said: "I hope people can ask themselves 'if he can run so many marathons in so many days, why can't I just spend two minutes to do a cheek swab?'."