Qatar creating a registry of organ donorsBy Noimot Olayiwola

Qatar is creating a registry containing names of all persons who have donated or are willing to donate their organs after death, Gulf Times learnt yesterday.
“We have already started working on the said registry in co-operation with the US-based United Network of Organ Sharing, which will assist us with its expertise in making sure that anybody willing to donate their organs after death will be listed in the planned registry,” Hamad Medical Corporation’s Urology and Transplant Surgery professor Dr Riadh A S Fadhil said in an interview yesterday.
The official said that work has also started to document donors’ wish on their personal identity card and the driving licence, which will include a box wherein they can indicate their willingness or unwillingness to donate their organs after death.
This is a recommendation made by the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) countries’ committee on organ donations and transplants, which met in Doha in March.
Dr Fadhill disclosed that the HMC, in co-operation with the Supreme Council of Health, is planning a big campaign on organ donation promotion.
Efforts are on to raise awareness about organ donation in the country, he said.
Late last year, both institutions announced the launch of the national campaign to raise awareness about organ donation, under the slogan “Together We Plant Hope”.
During the launching ceremony, it was also announced that HH Sheikha Moza bint Nasser had approved the Doha Donation Accord - an agreement on principles of honouring organ donors in Qatar.
Under the accord, donors are honoured as heroes and rewarded by the country’s leadership for their act of heroism.
“Very soon we will be conducting the national campaign to draw attention to sick people, who are in need of organs, as well as create awareness about importance of organ donation through education and awareness raising at different levels including schools, colleges, among factory workers and in the media,” he said.
Dr Fadhill also mentioned that the newly set up Organ Transplant Donor Centre is fully equipped and adequately staffed to encourage people to donate their organs, especially after death.
The centre located at the Hamad Hospital, has the capacity to carry our transplantation process of any organ including the kidney, liver or cornea, he said while mentioning that a total of 500 patients are presently on dialysis while some 60 are on the waiting list for kidney transplant and about 80 having liver failures of which 12 are on waiting list for transplantation.
Until now, the HMC is conducting only renal and cornea transplant.
However, the Corporation has said it will start liver transplant.
The plan envisages transplantation of liver taken from brain dead donors, the most common liver transplant procedure across the world, before progressing to adult-to-adult living donor liver transplantation, considered a more risky process.