According to local crowd funding platform, Kitafund, medical crowdfunding in Malaysia has surged by more than 50 percent between 2019 and 2022, as more families turn to public donations to help offset critical care costs.

A Kitafund director stated that the number of medical-related campaigns has spiked since the pandemic with growing appeals to help treat cancer, organ-related conditions and long term neurological diseases.

The Kitafund director stated that they are seeing more families turning to crowdfunding not because they want to but because they have no other option but to appeal to the general public for help with their medical expenses.

Kitafund has handled several organ transplant related cases, particularly infant liver transplants, but added that most of such operations are fully funded by the government through public hospitals.

Kitafund stated that most are covered entirely by government hospitals. Any donations Kitafund collects are usually meant to cover follow-up programs, long term medications and support equipment used during or after surgery.

However, Kitafund says cases requiring overseas treatment remain rare as most patients receive good care and attention domestically within the public healthcare system of Malaysia which they deem as satisfactory.

-THE MALAYSIA VOICE