PESHAWAR: More than 30 per cent of people suffering from renal failure are not finding donors in their families to undergo transplantation as under the law non-relatives are not allowed to donate organs, according to an expert.

“Every third patient is facing the problem of not having donor among close family members and the law does not allow people outside blood relation to donate organs. It has left the patients with no option but to continue with dialysis, which is very expensive and patients don’t survive longer than five years,” Dr Shahid Ahmad Khan, transplant surgeon at Institute of Kidney Diseases Hayatabad Medical Complex, told Dawn.

He said that brakes could be put on illegal organ transplantation in the country in addition to saving lives if donation by non-relatives was allowed. He added that most of the illegal transplants were conducted by untrained people and in many cases both the donors and recipients suffered.

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Dr Shahid said that paired-organ donation was a good solution to help patients as well as discourage the trend of unlawful transplants.

Health expert says illegal transplantations can be discouraged if ban lifted

In paired-organ donation, living donors and their recipients are not compatible for a transplant. However, the donor of each pair is compatible with the recipient of the other pair. If both donors and recipients are willing, doctors may consider a paired-organ donation.

The provincial government passed Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Medical Transplantation Regulatory Authority Act in 2014 but notified its rules in 2016 to implement the law after cases of illegal transplants emerged in the province. The law is meant to allow people to go for legal transplant and discourage untrained and illegal practitioners from carrying out the procedure by taking huge amount from people.

More than 300 transplants have been conducted in public and private sector hospitals in the province but finding donors among close family relatives is hampering renal transplants of the patients.

Dr Shahid, who has conducted 24 transplants during the last few months at IKD, said that all donors were close family members. He requested the government to enact a law to allow organ donation by non-relatives to save lives of people with damaged kidneys.

“In Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, government motivates people to come forward and donate organs. Donors are paid 50,000 riyals as token for their good deeds. Donors are directed or non-directed. Directed donors means that they come to donate to a specific patient. Non-directed means that they come to register for organ donation without knowing any patient,” he said.

Dr Shahid said that the problem was common and they wanted to convince government that non-related donors should be allowed to curb illegal high-risk and high-cost transplants on the pattern of Saudi Arabia.

Many countries have allowed paired-transplant or non-relatives to donate kidneys because there is a severe shortage of human organs worldwide.

“We also need to promote culture of organ donations,” he said. About 30 per cent of the people cannot get renal transplants because they don’t have relatives to give them kidney.

“We are also working on deceased’s organ donation but it requires public awareness. We need to counsel families to allow the transplantation of kidneys from their deceased members into patients direly needing them to stay alive,” he said.

Dr Shahid, who had also worked as a surgeon at King Faisal Hospital in Saudi Arabia, said that government should compensate families for agreeing to such organ donations

“We will send proposal to Medical Transplantation Regulatory Authority in this regard as people are dying of kidney failure because the law doesn’t permit non-relatives to donate organs. Paired-organ donation is a better option to facilitate patients,” he said.

Published in Dawn, November 23rd, 2023