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Published on March 10, 2008

More than 2,000 people are waiting for life-saving organ transplants. This year has seen just 10 registered organ donors pass away.

At present there are just 93 donors registered with the Thai Red Cross. However, that's up from just 72 in 2004. But the number of those on the waiting list is going up, too. There were 1,564 names on the list five years ago.

The greatest number of transplant candidates need kidneys, with more than 2,000 registered. Others are waiting for lungs and livers.

The Thai Red Cross organ-donation centre's director Dr Visist Dhitavat says most people do not want to donate organs because they believe that their body will not be complete in the next life.

He says people should donate organs to help other people and to make merit.

Eight years ago, Kittipong Klinjui, 39, was told he was dying of cirrhosis of the liver. His only chance of survival was a transplant.

Yet with a lack of donor livers available, his chances were slim.

In 2006 doctors put him on the transplant waiting list at Siriraj Hospital. He still thought his chances were close to zero.

The Thai Red Cross organ-donation centre can find only about 100 livers each year, and there are more than 2,000 patients on the waiting list.

His wife Suleeporn, 38, was shattered to learn her husband was going to die. "He asked me why I didn't cry. I told him if we cry how can we get through the hardest time in our lives? He never knew I cried behind his back," she says.

One month after he got on the waiting list, there was a glimmer of hope. Siriraj Hospital called to say there was a good chance Kittipong would receive a life-saving transplant.

He started to have second thoughts and worried about his body rejecting the new liver.

"I was afraid to have the operation. The organ would come from somebody else. Would it be compatible? In the end the desire to live won," he says.

Suleeporn says it was a miracle, the greatest day of her life. "My love could stay with me forever. I will never lose him," she says.

Today the couple have a new baby daughter, Cartoon. They call her a gift from God. They decided not have a child while Kittipong was ill.

Suleeporn is thankful to the organ donor and has now registered as a donor with the Thai Red Cross herself. She hopes some day to bring her joy to another family.

For information on organ donation, contact the Thai Red Cross organ-donation centre at (02) 256 4045-6

By Pongphon Sarnsamak

DailyXpress