ATTENDANCE AND INSTITUTIONAL FACILITIES OF LONG-TERM KIDNEY DONORS FOLLOW-UP

Abstract

Introduction:
Living donation is an important source for organs transplantation in Malaysia. This study aims to investigate the Malaysian living donors� follow-up attendance, their preferences on medical-institutional facilities, and the financial circumstances pertaining to the follow-up costs.
Materials and Methods:
Primary data were collected through a survey of 80 living donors who made their donation at the University of Malaya Medical Center (UMMC) between 1991 and 2012.
Results:
Out total of 178 donors, only 111 were reachable and 80 of them participated in the survey (72%). The findings revealed that most of the donors (71.2%) attend the follow-up regularly. Nevertheless, donors seem to neglect the importance of follow-up as they consider themselves healthy (28.9%) or consider the follow-up as being troublesome (28.9%). Most donors (67.5%) are not in favour of being treated as patients, but prefer to be monitored under donor registry (88.8%) and getting their health service in special clinics for donors (80%). The majority of the donors fund the follow-up costs themselves (32.4%), while 25% of the donors� follow-up costs were funded by family members. Among those donors without income and those of low-income (84.8% of respondents), 60.3% believe that the follow-up costs should be borne by the government.
Conclusions:
Based on the findings, it is therefore suggested that the government provides all living donors with proper free health service through donor registry and donor clinics. Adequate care has to be given to the donors to pre-empt any unforeseen health complications due to the organ donation surgical procedures.