Minister of Health to push for ban on Living Un-Related Donor organ transplantsKUWAIT CITY, Nov 15: Kuwait’s Minister of Health Dr Hilal Al-Sayer has agreed to push for a ban on Living Un-Related Donor (LURD) organ transplantation in Kuwait, said Dr Mustafa Al-Musawi, Head of Hamad Al-Essa Organ Transplantation Center.
The surgeon was talking at a seminar titled “WHO Perspective: Organ Donation and Transplantation” held at Kuwait Transplant Society Sunday. Prof Francis Delmonico, Director of Medical Affairs, The Transplantation Society and Advisor to World Health Organization (WHO), and AbdulRahman Al-Awadi, Head of Kuwait Transplanta-tion Society also spoke at the seminar.
Prof Delmonico was also part of the delegation that met the health minister on Sunday.
The experts stressed the need to encourage deceased donations in Kuwait to meet the demand for organs and stop the unethical practices surrounding organ transplantation.
Dr Musawi outlined some of the legal issues pertaining to transplantations in Kuwait saying that the state has made illegal organ trading; “however, the door for malpractice has been kept open through the allowance of donations by unrelated living donors.”
Permitted
Though this was permitted with the intention of respecting emotional bonds that go beyond blood relations, the law has paved the way for clandestine commercial deals between donors and recipients, the doctor noted.
Citing an example of malpractice in Kuwait, Dr Musawi said that out of 800 patients who were interviewed and accepted as potential organ donors, only 200 ended up donating an organ. “This hints at some hidden factors that caused a majority of the donors to change their minds. Probably, they could not agree on the payment amounts.
“A majority of these potential donors were Egyptian, Syrians and Lebanese. Kuwaiti patients who come for organ transplantation have on an average about 6 to 10 relatives capable of donating an organ. But they go out of Kuwait to procure a donor.”
Dr Musawi also spotlighted the high number of advertisements that appear in local newspapers asking for organ donors. “Some newspapers carry around 10 advertisements every day.”
The doctor said that on an average a donor gets around KD 6,000 per kidney, “which is not even worth a decent automobile.” He was sharing information he gained from some Kuwaiti organ recipients and underlining the crass fall in human dignity. “The poor are used as spare parts by the rich.”
“All malpractices take place in the guise of emotional relationships with donors posing as close friends of the patients.” When a study was conducted among patients who had undergone transplant surgeries about a year ago, less than 50 percent even remembered the names of their donors.”
Dr Musawi noted that as his center made donations by unrelated donors more difficult by deeply scrutinizing patient-donor relations, the incidence of donations by related donors increased.
Deceased
Dr Musawi observed that deceased organ donation in Kuwait is very low compared to international standards. “However, we stand fairly high among Middle East countries.
The doctor said that committee for Living Unrelated Donors was closed in 2008, by the law makers were under pressure from powerful lobbies to reopen the committee.
A kidney specialist who was also part of the discussion said that there are about 300 to 400 car accident deaths taking place in Kuwait every year, Dr Musawi said. “Even if a fraction of those deceased individuals are converted into donors, we can meet the demand in Kuwait.
“The government spends close to a million KD on sending transplant patients abroad for treatment. If those funds are diverted to the transplantation center, we would be able to serve the patients well.
“In 2008 there are 75 transplantation cases from Kuwait. This included both kidneys and pancreas. In 2004 the number of cases had touched 100.”
Prof Delmonico gave an international perspective of the issue. He said that around 90 countries provided transplantation services and about a million people in the world are on dialysis. “500 million need transplantation of organs such as kidneys, livers and hearts.
“So the demand is huge, and there is shortage.” The professor touched upon issues such as organ tourism and trafficking, which includes patients going to foreign countries to procure organs.
He cited the example of patients from Trinidad going to Pakistan for organ transplantation, and a tsunami victim from India, who was exploited by organ traders.
The professor then detailed some of the points laid out by WHO to serve as a guidance on this issue of organ donation. He stressed on consent of patients, protection of minors and the banning of sale and purchase of organs.
Decisions
Dr Delmonico also touched upon some of the decisions taken at the recently held Istanbul Declaration, stressing on the need to prohibit trafficking and tourism in organ transplantation and the need to uphold principles of equity and justice.
Commercialization of organs targets minors and the under privileged such as refugees, poor and so on, he added. The professor then dwelled on case studies of some countries like Iran, Egypt, Philippines, Malaysia, India, China and Pakistan.
He shed light on how China treats its prisoners as potential donors. Organs of death-row victims are procured for transplantation following their execution. The professor also noted how this is justified as giving emotional solace to a dying man, and analyzed some of the human-rights issues involved in it.
By Valiya S. Sajjad
Arab Times Staff
http://www.arabtimesonline.com/kuwaitnews/pagesdetails.asp?nid=39341&ccid=9
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