KARACHI: Health experts at an international conference organised at the Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation (SIUT) highlighted the role a deceased organ donation programme could play in saving lives and called for creating awareness in this respect.

According to them, one person dies in Pakistan every three minutes due to organ failure. This includes 60,000 kidney patients, 90,000 suffering from liver diseases and 20,000 of heart-related ailments every year.

Titled ‘Update in Organ Trans­plantation’, the seminar was attended by a large number of internationally acclaimed transplant surgeons, academicians and decision-makers from across the world

Speaking at the opening session Dr Nancy Ascher, the former president of American Society of Transplant Surgeons, appreciated SIUT for its efforts with regard to organ transplantation and briefed the audience about the progress being made in this field in various parts of the world.

She called for mobilising international, regional as well as national efforts to ensure that benefits of transplantation were extended to patients with end-stage disease.

She also spoke about the growing global burden of non-communicable diseases occurring in low- and middle-income countries.

Dr Francis Delmonico from Harvard Medical School, also a WHO adviser on matters related to organ donation and transplantation, was of the view that national authorities need to regulate donation and transplantation activities by maximising donation from deceased donors and appropriate healthcare on long-term basis.

Dr John Roberts shared his experience and observations regarding organ donation and transplantation activities. He also spoke about the success of Croatian model for deceased organ donation while emphasising the importance of media and civil society in creating awareness about the programme.

The experts believed that every country should have a national transplant programme based on ethical practices, transparency and well-being of patients.

Welcoming the guests, SIUT director Prof Adib Rizvi explained the philosophy of his institute successfully serving the society free of cost for the last 47 years.

“The philosophy of treating patients free and without any discrimination has been widely endorsed as a perfect model of health,” he remarked.

He also recounted the struggle against commercialism and unethical practices of organ trade and transplantation and highlighted the efforts and success of his team in establishing a successful transplant programme in the country.

The afternoon session was addressed by Dr Rehan Mohsin, Dr Tahir Aziz, Dr Nasir Luck and Dr Haider Mehdi of SIUT.

Published in Dawn, December 14th, 2018