KARACHI, Feb 23: Pakistan is perhaps the only country in the Islamic world where law on cadaver donations does not exist, as despite sustained efforts since 1994, legislators have not adopted this vital law.

This was stated by eminent urologists of the country here on Sunday during presentation of their papers on the concluding day of the third national conference of the Pakistan Association of Urological Surgeons.

Dr Anwer Naqvi of the Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation (SIUT) in his presentation said that minimum cost of dialysis in public sector hospitals was Rs200,000, while transplantation cost was Rs150,000 which was beyond the reach of a common man.

He termed non-existence of cadaver donation law in the country as major scourge afflicting patients of various urological diseases which was ultimately resulting in large-scale deaths of patients.

“In Pakistan, approximately 10,000 kidneys are required annually for transplantation, while only 724 are available and these too are from living donors either related or unrelated. Besides, commercialism has set in as the demand is much higher than the supply and the sale of organ continues in some private centres.”

He said remedy lies in increasing the number of organs available for transplantation which was possible only by implementing the cadaver organ donation law which gives right to an individual to donate a part of his body and an equal right to the recipient to obtain needed one.

Dr Saeed Akhtar, a senior urologist at Al Shifa International, Islamabad, said that some ambiguity and confusion existed among religious scholars and common people about the transplantation process.

Dr Akhtar called upon health planers and pubic representatives to accept transplantation as a reality.—PPI