As part of the recently launched campaign by the Public Health Ministry and the Thai Red Cross Society, hospitals nationwide will hold exhibitions next month to promote the initiative, said Dr Sopon Mekthon, permanent secretary for public health.
The Thai Red Cross Society’s Organ Donation Centre and the organisation’s provincial branches will collect organ donor application forms from Thursday to Monday to boost patients’ chances to get trans plants, reduce deaths and shorten waiting queues for organs.
Sopon said the ministry’s 10 hospitals conducted organ-transplant surgeries.
As part of the campaign, general and centre hospitals as well as the Thai Red Cross Society’s National Blood Centre will collect blood on the 13th day of month until December 5, 2017.
As of November 15, the society reported that 5,458 patients were on waiting lists for organ donations – about 800 of whom could have surgery every year but there were only about 200 organ donations a year.
The low number of organ donations is mainly due to the widespread belief that people who donate organs will be born without those organs in the next life, which is not in keeping with Buddhism. In fact, donating organs is considered making great merit, Sopon said.
As of November 15, there were 11,591 people on the waiting list for retina implant surgery – about 800 of whom could undergo operations each year.
The Thai Red Cross Society needs up to 60,000 blood donations per month to distribute to hospitals nationwide.