Blood has got no religion at National Blood Centre

Malaysians share the same blood at the bank, it says in response to needless controversy.

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PETALING JAYA: There is no segregation in the donation and transfer of blood according to race or religion, says the National Blood Centre.

In a statement to FMT, the centre said because there wasn’t any segregation, it didn’t separate blood donated by Muslim and non-Muslims.

Recently, Malaysian rapper Namewee, no stranger to controversy, questioned whether his blood and organs could only be donated to non-Muslims as he was a non-Muslim who ate non-halal food like pork.

His question came in the wake of the confiscation of paint brushes made from pig tissue.

In response, Federal Territories Mufti Zulkifli Mohamad al-Bakri said non-Muslim blood could be donated to Muslims because blood remained blood and was not made up entirely of pork.

He added that it wasn’t wrong to receive blood from a non-Muslim who ate pork.

The National Blood Centre added that the issue of separating Muslim and non-Muslim blood was discussed as far back as 1982 by the National Fatwa Committee’s Conference on Islamic Religious Affairs.

It added that Islam made it compulsory for Muslims to donate blood and that any form of payment to blood donors was discouraged.

The centre said the organ donation and transfer process also didn’t discriminate on race, religion or social standing.