EARLIER in the month a law allowing organ transplantation from living people and the deceased was passed in the UAE, providing a huge relief to patients on organ donation waiting lists across the country.
It is good to see that the law, which comes into effect from March next year, also bars funding transplantation of human organs, tissues and body parts if organs were sold.
“The new law regulates transplantation of human organs and tissues, which saves many lives and restores essential functions for many otherwise untreatable patients,” says Health and Prevention Ministry’s public health policy and licensing assistant under-secretary Dr Ameen Al Amiri.
The law provides a clear definition of death – in keeping with fatwas (Islamic rulings) given by the councils of senior scholars in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Kuwait and other Islamic countries. It also prohibits the sale of human organs and tissues or other body parts in any way for the purpose of transplantation and bans unlicensed advertising of transplantation of human organs, tissues and body parts.
The findings of a national survey on organ transplant show there are more than 2,000 kidney patients on dialysis in the UAE on a waiting list for kidney transplants alone.
The UAE-based survey, titled ‘The National Survey on Organ Donation and Transplant’, conducted by Mohammad bin Rashid University of Medicine and Health Sciences, included 500 respondents comprising citizens and expatriates above the age of 18.
The review was conducted to study public awareness, beliefs and attitudes towards organ donation and see if people were attuned to this idea. Nearly 68 per cent of the respondents said they were ready to donate in the event they became brain-dead, which shows that the country is ready for deceased organ transplantation.
Last year Bahrain health officials issued a warning about the dangers of transplant medical tourism as growing numbers of Bahrainis looked abroad for kidney transplants.
Since 1997, when the Health Ministry opened its Yusuf Khalil Almoayyed Nephrology and Renal Transplant Centre at Salmaniya Medical Complex, 123 Bahrainis have travelled abroad in search of a new kidney.
Half of these went either to the Philippines or Iran, according to ministry statistics, while the rest travelled to Pakistan, India, Egypt, Iraq, Syria or Bangladesh for their operations. Many developed complications and 26 subsequently died. Officials say the price of a kidney used to range between BD15,000 and BD18,000 in the 90s, whereas today it has jumped to between BD38,000 and BD40,000.
Organs that can be transplanted are the heart, kidneys, liver, lungs, pancreas, intestine, and thymus. Tissues include bones, tendons, cornea, skin, heart valves, nerves and veins. Worldwide, kidneys are the most commonly transplanted organs, followed by the liver and then the heart. Cornea and musculoskeletal grafts are the most commonly transplanted tissues.
Under the UAE law, the donation of organs and tissues can only be made by a legally competent person and is restricted to relatives within the fourth degree and couples married for at least two years.
The law will also permit donation of bone marrow from minors or legally incompetent persons, provided that the marrow is transplanted in parents, siblings or children of the donor. Written consent from the donor’s guardian is required in this case. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), kidney transplants are carried out in 91 countries.
WHO estimates only 10pc of global needs for organ transplantation are currently met.
I do believe, however, that the only way to meet needs and eliminate the black market is for countries to take responsibility of meeting their own transplant needs and establish legal markets, with solutions like developing better systems of deceased organ donation, preventing needs for transplantation by treating diseases that lead to organ failure such as diabetes and hepatitis as well as implementing laws that prohibit organ trading and trafficking.