Impact of 2009 Amendments to Human Organ Transplant Act on Organ Transplant Issues

Mr David Ong asked the Minister for Health since the last amendment to the Human Organ Transplant Act (HOTA) in 2009 (a) how effective has HOTA been in helping those waiting for an organ transplant; (b) what are the issues involved in achieving a better donor-recipient success rate; and (c) whether HOTA will be further refined to increase the success rate.

Mr Gan Kim Yong: The Human Organ Transplant Act (HOTA) was last amended on 1 November 2009. The amendments included lifting the age limit of 60 years on cadaveric donations, allowing donor-recipient paired matching, raising the penalty on organ trading syndicates and facilitating organ recipients to reimburse the expenses incurred by their donors if they wish to do so.

The lifting of the age limit had allowed us to gain an additional nine donors, benefiting 33 recipients since the amendment of HOTA in 2009.

About 30% of Singaporean and Permanent Resident donors have also benefited from the change to allow recipients to reimburse their donors for the donation-related hospitalisation expenses and loss of income. Another 14 donors have benefited from National Kidney Foundation (NKF)'s "Kidney Live Donor Support Fund" which provided financial assistance for their donation-related expenses.

The vast majority of Singaporeans support organ donation. Less than 3% of the potential HOTA population has opted out. However, the pool of clinically suitable deceased donors is small, averaging 20 donors a year for the past five years. We also encourage family members to consider donating to their loved ones who are in need of a transplant. We will continue to work with the clinicians to increase the awareness and highlight the benefits of living donor transplants.

It has been two years since the HOTA amendments. We will monitor the situation before assessing whether there is a need to refine the HOTA further. My Ministry will also continue to review and improve the organ donation rates through various efforts, including the on-going Live On publicity campaign, and we hope that Singaporeans will continue to support organ donation to save more lives.

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