Is there a bone marrow registry in Tonga?

Tonga’s patients can be referred abroad under New Zealand’s Medical Treatment Scheme. [13]

Pacific Media Network reported in March 2025 that most blood donations in Tonga come through family requests on social media or local radio, and that a health advocate’s yearly 24-kilometer World Blood Donor Day walk to Nuku’alofa raises money for Vaiola Hospital’s blood services; the report doesn’t mention marrow donors. [15]

The Tonga Red Cross’s secretary-general told Pacific Media Network in June 2025 that most people in Tonga give blood only when relatives are in hospital, and that the Red Cross wants regular voluntary donors instead; the report is about blood, with nothing on marrow donors. [14]

We couldn’t open Tonga Ministry of Health’s website when we tried on Oct 11, 2026. That tells us nothing about whether it offers a way to join.

We couldn’t open one other official page when we tried on Oct 11, 2026. That tells us nothing about whether it offers a way to join.

In New Zealand, 97,824 people identified as Tongan at the 2023 Census, Stats NZ says, and those who live there can join the New Zealand Bone Marrow Donor Registry from 18 to 35. On Oct 16, 2026, neither that registry, which delivers kits across New Zealand, nor Medicare-based Stem Cell Donors Australia described joining from Tonga. [1, 2, 3, 6]

Matangi Tonga reported in February 2019 that Tonga’s Ministry of Health has a committee that decides which patients go to New Zealand or Australia for major treatment and pays their airfares and treatment, and that a first group of five Tongan patients had had operations in India. [11]

Kaniva Tonga reported in April 2019, in a story shared with RNZ, that Tonga’s Health Ministry had signed a referral deal with India’s Apollo hospital group, and that Tongan patients needing neurosurgery, cardiac surgery and cancer treatment had already gone there. [12]

Tonga’s Ministry of Health chooses patients for India by whether they can manage long flights with stopovers, its chief executive told RNZ in a story Kaniva Tonga published in April 2019, after a Tongan medical team visited the Indian hospital first. [12]