There are 7,055 new patients every year, says report

PETALING JAYA: There are up to 7,055 new kidney patients every year, according to the 22nd Report of The Malaysian Dialysis & Transplant Registry 2014.
Some 35,000 patients are undergoing dialysis and 19,479 are on the kidney transplant waiting list.
According to a journal titled: "The Cost and Utility of Renal Transplantation in Malaysia" published on Nov 20, 2015, the average cost of a kidney transplant for adults was US$8,609 (RM35,078) and US$13,209 for a living-donor kidney transplant (LKT) and deceased donor kidney transplant, respectively.
Whereas in children, the average cost was US$10,485 and US$14,985 respectively.
Kidney transplant programmes are available at government hospitals such as University Malaya Medical Centre Hospital Kuala Lumpur and Selayang Hospital.
Following strict criteria imposed by the Health Ministry in 2013, private hospitals contributed up to 19% of kidney transplant operations in the country.
Kidney transplant began in 1999 in private medical centres such as Sime Darby Medical Centre and Gleneagles Hospital followed by Prince Court Medical Centre in 2009.
A kidney transplant is defined as a procedure to replace a failing kidney with a healthy kidney from a donor.
The procedure is recommended for patients suffering from end-stage renal disease leading to organ failure. Requiring a healthy kidney from the donor, the organ may originate from a living or deceased organ donor.
The ministry had set the need for a dedicated transplant team, which comprises not only of transplant surgeons, but radiologists, pathologists, and anaesthesiologists to provide total continuum of care to the patient.
This had made it difficult for private medical centres to comply, forcing some to shut down their operations.