Malaysian woman’s moving hospital honour walk spurs conversation on organ donation
Misconceptions remain in the Muslim-majority country – especially around brain death, burial and whether the body must remain complete
Normah Sabar, remembered by Malaysia’s national mapping agency as the country’s first female surveyor, died at Hospital Sungai Buloh in Selangor on Saturday. She was 72.
The next day, hospital staff and medical teams held a walk of honour, a ceremonial procession in which health workers line hospital corridors to pay tribute to an organ donor before the retrieval procedure.
Hospital Sungai Buloh said Normah had “donated organs and tissues to five people in need”, thanking her family for allowing her pledge to be fulfilled.
“During her life, she educated the nation’s children. In her final breath, she continued to serve,” the hospital said in a tribute posted online on Monday.
The hospital said Normah had been declared brain-dead before the donation proceeded, adding that her final act had given recipients “a new ray of life”.