KARACHI: Need stressed for organ transplant legislation: Organ donors honoured
Speaking at a ceremony organised by the Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation at the Sindh Governor’s House to honour the organ donors, he said there could be no bigger sacrifice than donating an organ to a sick person.
The governor on the occasion expressed his apprehension with regard to organ trade witnessed in some centres, regretting that poor people were being forced to sell their kidneys to pay off their debts.
To counter the practice, Dr Ishratul Ibad called for enactment of laws for cadaver transplantation, which he said would not only help patients in need of organ donation, ultimately saving their lives, but also put an end to the illegal and inhuman trade.
The governor congratulated Prof Adibul Hasan Rizvi for carrying out renal transplantation for the last two decade and observed that the SIUT was an example of generosity.
Prof Adibul Hasan Rizvi, SIUT director, reiterated the need to enact legislation on cadaver organ donation as its absence, he said, was providing a lever for organ sale and rampant commercialism.
He also provided the figures with regard to required organ for end-stage organ failure patients in the world and mentioned that despite the provision for cadaver organ donation across the globe, including Muslim countries, Pakistan was yet to have the law. He strongly pleaded for the brain death law to be adopted by parliament.
Prof Francis Delmonico, president of the International Society of Transplant Surgeons, lauding the donors said they were the people who knew the value of life as they gave a greater sacrifice for someone else. “They are advocates of life and they are different from those coerced to sell their organs,” he said.
Dr Luc Noel of the World Health Organisation (Geneva) said the wonder of transplantation had brought humanity together, adding that it restoredlives.
Later the governor handed memento to Syed Anwar ul Haq, father of the late Naveed, and Shah Jehangir, brother of the late Shamim Bano. Medals were presented to the live donors.
The ceremony was attended, among others, by recipients of organ donations, senior national and international medical figures, legislators and other dignitaries.
MUSHARRAF HAILS: President Gen Pervez Musharraf on Thursday said that there were hundreds of thousands of patients suffering from organ failure, who had exhausted all avenues of medical treatment and could live normally from the beneficence of organ transplantation.
In his message read out at the ceremony at the Sindh Governor’s House, the president said: “They must be congratulated for their great act of sacrifice.”
On behalf of the nation, he also lauded the families of the deceased donors — Syed Naveed Anwar and Ms Shamim Bano — who were kept on life support machine for many days before being declared brain dead.
Acknowledging that these young Pakistanis had wished during their lifetime to donate parts of their body after their death to save human beings, President Musharraf said it was indeed creditable that the families on their own approached hospitals for organ donation.
After the families' consent the transplants were carried out at the SIUT and kidneys were transplanted to four deserving patients on lifetime dialysis, who are now living a happy life, the president said.
He mentioned that in addition to it their corneas were also given to four blind people who were able to see for the first time -- this was the greatest act of charity in the form of gift of life, which have enabled other human beings to continue living a normal life.—APP