Taiwan Hospital wants to establish stem cell centre in Malaysia

By Wan Nadia Khairani Wan Chik

GEORGE TOWN, July 6 (Bernama) -- Hualien Tzu Chi Hospital, a stem cell specialist centre in Taiwan is looking to collaborate with Malaysian hospitals to establish a stem cell specialist centre in the country.

Centre of Stem Cell and Precision Medicine director Dr Chi-Cheng Li said, however,  for the time being, it would provide stem cell therapy via regenerative treatment to more Malaysian patients, especially among blood-related cancer patients.

“We can have them (patients) travel to Taiwan to receive this high-tech treatment and provide them with good financial support,” he told Bernama on the sidelines of  Taiwan Healthcare Technology seminar at Bagan Baru here today, held in conjunction with Taiwan Expo 2019, which features Taiwan Healthcare Pavilion. 

He said the centre would offer treatment to Malaysian patients at a much lower cost compared with other countries such as the US and Europe.

Elaborating further, Dr Li said currently, they were in talks with several medical centres in Malaysia to establish a stem cell bank to further expand the regenerative treatment method which was proven effective in mitigating some critical illnesses.

“But it's not easy (to establish the stem cell bank), it needs facilities as well as experts, thus we will do this step by step,” he said.

Meanwhile, Chang Gung Memorial Hospital of Taiwan vice-governor Dr Jen-Tsung Yang said they wanted to share their expertise in the field with Malaysia.

“We are offering to provide training to Malaysian doctors and medical students at our international medical centre. We’ve been accepting many doctors and medical students from various countries to undergo training at our medical centre and we welcome Malaysian doctors and medical students to leverage on our expertise,” he said. 

-- BERNAMA