SIUT SYMPOSIUM - Importance of deceased organ donation programme highlighted

MN Report

Karachi:  Experts  at a symposium held to discuss deceased’s organ donation emphasized the need for creating more public awareness and mobilizing the society at large for making deceased organ donation programme successful.

Central Reut-e-Hilal Committee’s chairman Mufti Muneeb-ur-Rehman presided over the symposium held under the auspices of Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation (SIUT).

The symposium was addressed, among others, by Francis Delmonico (USA), Faissal Shaheen (Saudi Arabia), Mustafa Al Mousawi (Kuwait), Sunil Shroff (India), while the panelists included Dr Adib Rizvi, S. A. Malekhosseini (Iran), Justice (retd) Haziq-ul-Khairi, Justice (retd) Majida Razvi, Ms Kishwar Zehra and Zahida Hina.
Speaking on the occasion, experts, opinion-makers and academics said that there is a need to achieve national self-sufficiency in organ transplantation by pooling resources and increasing availability of organs for those patients suffering from multiple organ failures.

Pointing out that some 150,000 patients lose their battle for life each year, they said that kidney failure patients have a hope of receiving a kidney from a living donor, but patients requiring a heart, lungs, liver, pancreas and cornea can only have a chance of improving their quality of life through organs from a deceased or brain dead donor.

To make deceased donor programme successful they said, the first step is to raise awareness among medical personnel and the general public.

Experts appreciated the role of print and electronic media, civil society, Islamic Research Centre and all those individuals who supported ban on illegal organ trade.

SIUT has initiated the kidney transplantation programme in 1986 and has, so far, performed over 4,721 living related kidney transplants. The record of transplantation results shows patients survival rate is 94 per cent, while recipient rehabilitation rate is 85pc and donor mortality rate zero pc.