LAHORE, Feb 3: There is a need of around 20,000 kidney transplantation's in Pakistan annually, but it is unfortunate that it has not yet been institutionalized.

This was stated by Pakistan Association of Urological Surgeons (PAUS) secretary general Dr. Sajjad Husain while speaking at a news conference here on Thursday. He also announced that PAUS is organizing its first three-day international urological conference at a local hotel from Feb 7.

He said kidney transplantation in the Punjab was being done on individual basis that needed to be institutionalized. He said the treatment (kidney dialysis) cost was very high that not only burden the patient and his family but the whole country as well.

He estimated that each kidney patient was required to spend some Rs10,000 every month which was not feasible for most of the patients. On the part of the government, he said there was a need to provide sophisticated equipment, qualified staff and resources.

Prof Husain, who is Postgraduate Medical Institute/Lahore General Hospital principal, said the end stage renal disease had become a global challenge and needed to be fought by developing strategies to prevent it. He also said that there was a need to develop facilities to diagnose renal diseases at early stages.

Answering a question, he said organs harvesting was a very crucial issue to do transplantations. He said there was a need to motivate society that the clinically dead patients should donate their organs to the needy. He, however, said there was no law available in this regard.

Answering another question about the illegal trade of kidney transplantation, Prof Husain said the association had allocated a one day of the conference on Feb 9 to discuss the 'ethical issues in renal transplantation.' He said the conference would provide guidelines to the government to devise policies to progress in the urology speciality.

Prof Husain said the international urological conference would be inaugurated by Senate Chairman Muhammadmian Soomro while the federal and Punjab health ministers would also attend the moot. He said some 1,000 urological surgeons, including 100 foreign delegates, would participate in the conference.

Prof Husain said the conference recommendations would directly be communicated to policy makers. He said the PAUS would also organize a pre-conference live workshop at Sheikh Zayed Hospital to conduct minimal invasive surgery of at least 10 deserving patients from different urology wards of the teaching hospitals in the city.

He said the PAUS was working to create awareness among masses about renal diseases, prevention and treatment. PAUS president Dr. Fateh Khan Akhtar was also present on the occasion.