PESHAWAR: The government is mulling over a legislation to pave way for retrieval of organs from donors passing away at hospitals to be transplanted to needy patients.

“We have started work on draft legislation under which organs from deceased persons will be preserved at hospitals for donation to needy patients, Dr Amjad Ali Khan, the focal person to chief minister on health affairs, told Dawn.

According to him, the government has already started establishment of kidney, liver and bone marrow transplant centres at Khyber Teaching Hospital that will start operations within a couple of months.

However, he said that they were facing a lot of problems in getting donated organs.

“Human Organ Transplant Authority (Hota), which regulates transplants at national level, has the provision of organ donation from deceased persons provided they had consented donating organs in their lifetime. The family members of the deceased can reject the consent due to which his/her organ cannot be donated. Once we start the process at provincial level then efforts would be made to do away with the clause of Hota at relevant forums. This clause enables the family members of deceased persons to reject the donation of organs,” said Dr Amjad.

CM aide says 4,500 people require renal transplants annually in KP

He said that donation of organs by a living person was another problem. He said that most people hesitated to donate organs and even if they did, there were issues in matching their organs with the recipients, he added.

“We are in the process to initiate legislation in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly that will make the dead body an asset of the state and organs of dead people can be preserved to be transplanted to seriously-ill patients,” said Dr Amjad, who is also MNA of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf from Swat.

He said that in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, at least 4,500 people required renal transplants annually but due to lack of donation culture patients suffered or opted for illegal transplants, which entailed a lot of complications.

He said that such patients paid a lot to unlawfully-run hospitals for transplants.

“We will take into confidence religious leaders of different schools of thought as well as representatives of all political parties to go for a law under which families wouldn’t retract the consent of deceased persons and their organs would be preserved,” he said.

He added that the system was in place in many developed countries where organs were taken from the people once their brains were dead with no chance of getting alive.

Dr Amjad said that members of other provincial assemblies, National Assembly and Senate would be also taken into confidence because the legislation would help severely-ill people to get new lives.

It would be a milestone in medical history of Pakistan because the organs of dead people went to waste if not retrieved through legal means, he added.

He said that presently kidney and corneal transplants were being conducted in the province that benefitted people.

“For corneal transplants, we totally bank on donations sent by Association of Physicians of Pakistani Descent of North America (APPNA) and once the legislation is in place, there will be no dearth of corneas,” he said.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Medical Transplantation Authority has been holding awareness seminars to increase organ donations and safeguard the lives of critically-ill people.

The authority, established to put brakes on illegal transplants and headed by Prof Asif Malik, has helped people to get corneal and renal transplants legally but the main challenge it faces is people’s unwillingness to donate organs.

The proposed law, if enforced, will be a new development in medical sciences and score of lives can be saved.

Published in Dawn, January 2nd, 2025