Sabah becomes third to provide bone marrow transplant

KOTA KINABALU: The Sabah Women and Children's Hospital in Likas became the third government hospital in the country to provide bone marrow transplant after General Hospital Kuala Lumpur (GHKL) and Ampang Hospital.

State Health Director Dr Christina Rundi (pic) said, Tuesday, the Bone Marrow Transplant Unit is housed on the 7th Floor of the Radiotherapy and Nuclear Medicine Centre of the hospital.

At the official handover of the hospital to the State Health Department in April, last year, she mentioned that bone marrow transplant (also called stem cell transplant) would be possible in Sabah in the near future.

"Since then, we have made the necessary preparations to set up the Bone Marrow Transplant Unit.

Our nurses went for training at the Ampang Hospital in Kuala Lumpur while we procured the equipment such as stem cell processor and blood irradiator.

"We are fortunate to have the services of Paediatric Haemato-Oncologist, Dr Asohan Thevarajah who reported for work in July.

"And on Oct. 31, our dream came true when the Sabah Women and Children's Hospital performed the first bone marrow transplant on a 12-year-old leukaemic girl from Tuaran," she confirmed, when contacted.

The stem cell processor arrived last December followed by the blood irradiator in August this year. The purpose of the second machine is to sterilise the bone marrow donor's blood to reduce the risk of "graft (donor) versus host (patient)" disease.

A bone marrow transplant is a procedure to replace damaged or destroyed bone marrow with healthy bone marrow stem cells. Bone marrow is the soft tissue inside the hollow part of bones which helps form blood cells. Stem cells are immature cells in the bone marrow that give rise to all of one's blood cells.

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Sabah becomes third to provide bone marrow transplant