TOP THREE BLOOD DONORS OF MALAYSIA

HAD DONATED MORE THAN 300 GALLONS OF BLOOD IN BETWEEN THEM AND TRAVELED MORE THAN 80,000 KILOMETERS TO GO TO THE BLOOD CENTERS TO THE NATIONAL BLOOD CENTER OVER FORTY YEARS!

By Mansor Puteh

Who are the fastest Malaysians who had created national records in sports, or who was the first and only Malaysian, so far, who had flown to outer space, or who was the first Malaysian who had sailed around the world?

And who was the Malaysian who had achieved other feats in sports or won other national and international recognition in other endeavors?

All these have been splashed on the front-pages of the newspapers and mentioned in the Malaysia Book or Records for posterity.

But who is the Malaysian who had donated blood the most number of times? No one knows, and no one seems to care.

Why are the feats of Malaysians who had donated blood the most cannot be recognized as such – a feat in itself, too?

The reason being the National Blood Center or Pusat Darah Negara (PDN) and the Ministry of Health or Kementerian Kesihatan Malaysia (KKIM) have not been treating those who donate blood like humans, but ‘bags’ all these years. They are not given the image of some people who, too, deserve to be given due recognition, not that it was their intention to get it, unlike those who dabbled in sports who had to train to achieve their feats and who were given all the necessary financial support and in kind to allow them to get the necessary training in the country and sometimes abroad, even though in the end, they hardly achieved half of what they had tried to get, and not even able to make to the finals in the Olympics.

Blood donors do the deed rather unconsciously; and the three top blood donors of Malaysia had started to donate blood for the first time when they were in their late teens.

I know all of the three, and I am one of them.

The top three blood donor, Liew Chin Yap, Hew Hock Peng and me, all donated blood for the first time when we were either in Form Six, at the University or young. And all of us have donated blood for more than 500 times, with Liew Chin Yap having donated blood close to 600 times.

In fact, I could have become the top blood donor of the country by donating for more than 900 times, if not for the sixteen years when I could not do so because I had to undergo three knee surgeries when I was studying at a university in New York City, and had to do it at two hospitals there.

And all of us had donated blood for 1,600 times or 900 liters or 260 gallons, in all; and from what I could estimate all of the three of us had to drive to go to PDN and back for 90,000 kilometers.

We also had to spend about four months just lying on the bed while donating and afterwards to rest before driving back.

Liew Chin Yap, was a young man, who followed his relative who was donating blood but he was not confident with himself to donate blood then, so he didn’t do it until the next time when he went to a hospital to donate blood on his own.

The second top blood donor of Malaysia is Hew Hock Peng who said he first donated blood in a campaign held at his university, Universiti Teknogi Malaysia (UTM) where he later graduated from, while I donated for the first time when I was in Form Six at the now defunct, Malaysian Tutorial College (MTC) in Jalan Barat, Petaling Jaya, when a classmate, I only by his first name of Alex, invited me to join him to go to University Hospital where he had been donating regularly. I agreed and made my first donation without questioning.

I then went on to donate a few more times are different hospitals including at the Malacca Hospital.

And all the three of us, we given some sort of appreciation in the form of a certificate signed by Prime Minister, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohammed at a special function held in Setia City in November, 2018, and handed by the Minister of Health, Datuk Dzulkefly Ahmad.

But what Malaysians, many of who might have not heard of the procedure called donating blood will not be intrigued by it because they had not been informed or taught of it, and no wonder many feared giving blood because they did not feel the pain others felt, when their relatives, mostly in their later years, were needing blood for transfusion and surgeries, needed the blood of others to save their lives.

And the image of blood donors has not been profiled or created by PDN or KKM, because their officials did not know the physical acts regular donors had to go through to get to PDN and most importantly, to create in our minds, the reasons why we habitually do such a deed, without expecting any fiduciary returns or in whatever forms.

Yes, we have to do a lot of traveling and time management to add in our schedule so that we can look at the long distance we have to travel to get to PDN and back, as part of our regular routine.

I am luckier than the first two donors, because PDN is beside Balai Seni Visual Negara (BSVN) and each time I donate blood I would go over to BSVN to check the exhibitions they are having there.

And I also am having one, a photo exhibition of photos of Kuala Lumpur I shot in 1995, when massive physical development was taking place in the city, there from 9 July to 16 September next year, ending on Hari Malaysia in the Visit Malaysia Year 2020.

I paid Liew Chin Yap a visit at the stall he operates in the Selayang Wet Market, so he is there for most of the day and he had to put aside a bit of his time, to go to PDN to donate blood.