KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 30 — Health Minister Dzulkefly Ahmad has made organ transplant a national agenda for 2026, even as Malaysia has among the world’s lowest organ donation rates.
Dzulkefly touted reviews of the Human Tissue Act 1974 to “better protect living donors and streamline the process”, adding that the Ministry of Health (MOH) is in the final stages of revising the National Organ, Tissue and Cell Transplantation Policy (2007) to align with global standards.
“Malaysia’s transplant activity remains far below national needs, despite strong clinical expertise, public-sector infrastructure, and a growing burden of end-stage organ failure driven by menacing NCDs (non-communicable diseases) and systemic gaps in prevention and early care,” Dzulkefly wrote on X last night.
“By 2026, transplantation must be reframed as a national agenda—central to health system sustainability, equity, and dignity of life.
“Admittedly, organ transplantation is one of the most complex, emotional, and difficult services to manage. It involves ethics, law, deep emotions, and intricate logistics.”
He noted that operations of the National Transplant Centre (NTC) were shifted two years ago from Kuala Lumpur Hospital (HKL) to the MOH’s medical development division to give the NTC the mandate to drive organ transplant policy nationwide.
Dzulkefly plans to establish a National Transplant Council to provide the central authority for data and resource management.
“We recognise the need to strengthen our human capital. Producing transplant specialists takes years of rigorous subspecialty training, e.g. ~8 years to train a hepatobiliary surgeon,” he said.
“While we build this long-term capacity, we are taking immediate steps to optimise existing resources and bridge the gap through strategic partnerships.”
The MOH is planning to work with experts from private and university hospitals to form a “unified national procurement team”.
Organ donation campaigning will shift from #Sayasudahberikrar to #WariskuHormatiIkrarku to ensure that one’s next-of-kin honours their pledges upon their death.
CodeBlue previously reported NTC director Dr Mohd Syafiq Ismail Azman as telling the Health parliament special select committee (PSSC) last October that nearly 90 per cent of potential deceased organ donations in Malaysia fail to proceed because families decline consent. Malaysia has one of the highest family refusal rates for deceased organ donation globally.
There are currently 10,736 patients in Malaysia awaiting transplants: 10,707 for kidneys, five for livers, 12 for hearts, three for lungs, and nine for combined heart-lung transplants.
“Over 400,000 Malaysians have registered as donors, yet we still have >10,000 patients on the waiting list. There’s more to be done!” wrote Dzulkefly.
The Health PSSC was told that an average of 21 Malaysians on the waiting list die each day for lack of an available organ, while roughly 27 new patients join the list daily. By 2040, Malaysia is projected to exceed 104,000 dialysis patients.
According to Dr Mohamad Zaimi Abdul Wahab, president of the Malaysian Society of Transplantation and a transplant nephrologist at HKL, Malaysia only recently reached one donor per million population for cadaveric organ donations, among the lowest globally.
Malaysia has performed just 3,492 transplant surgeries since 1975, roughly the number the United States performs in a single year.
“Making a pledge is now seamless via MySejahtera App. As of July 2025, we’ve had >16,000 NEW sign-ups!” said Dzulkefly.
However, at the Health PSSC, MOH officials attributed a decline in organ donation pledges to the ministry’s shift to MySejahtera as the primary organ donor registration platform, as many Malaysians no longer used the app or couldn’t access their accounts.
New donor registrations have dropped steeply since the surge in 2022 and 2023, when 29,960 and 31,058 people signed up.
MOH officials told the Health PSSC that the ministry is looking at an opt-out system for organ donation, like in Singapore, to increase donation rates. Reviews of the Human Tissue Act will also include covering living donations that aren’t explicitly covered in the law.
