Is there a bone marrow registry in Samoa?

Samoa refers patients abroad, mainly to New Zealand, under two treatment schemes. [8]

New Zealand, where 213,069 people identified as Samoan at the 2023 Census, Stats NZ says, has a registry that says it has only 3,000 Pacific Island people on it and is recruiting more. It delivers kits across New Zealand, and on Oct 16, 2026 neither it nor Australia’s Medicare-based registry described joining from Samoa. [1, 2, 3, 7]

The Samoa Observer reported in February 2024 that Samoa’s India medical treatment scheme would resume after a new memorandum with Apollo Hospitals, and that Samoa’s Director General of Health had said the country can’t afford to keep sending patients overseas. [13]

Samoa News, citing the Samoa Observer, reported in October 2022 that Samoa’s government added 4 million tālā to its overseas medical scheme in March 2022, after the 8 million tālā budgeted for 2021–2022 ran out early. [14]

Samoa’s 2023 overseas treatment policy reports that 265 patients were put forward for overseas referral in 2020–21 and 2021–22, 38 of them cancer patients, and that 36 approved patients died before they could be referred; it doesn’t break cancers down by type. [8]

Samoa News reported in October 2022 that Prime Minister Fiame Naomi Mata’afa had spoken of an agreement with a cardiology clinic in Fiji and of help from the Samoa Medical Association of New Zealand, so more patients could be treated under the scheme without always going abroad. [14]

Samoa’s government spent NZD 2.4 million on overseas treatment alone in 2020–21 and NZD 6.9 million in 2021–22, its 2023 policy says, after COVID-19 travel limits cut referrals in the first year; patients and families pay airfares and accommodation. [8]