50,000 poor patients to receive new organ transplants

At least 50,000 poor patients across the country with different organ failures would receive new organs transplants. Professor Dr Anwar Naqvi said while narrating struggle for getting the approval of parliament and president house at Dewan Farooque Auditorium Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation (SIUT) on Thursday.
"The law would not only help stop trade of organs, but also prove helpful to regain the honour of the country by throwing away the label of "cheapest organ bazaar," Professor Naqvi said, adding that "there is dire need to motivate people for donating organs."
He termed it a great achievement for patients with kidney failure, who would receive cadaver kidneys, patients of liver failure to receive liver, heart failure patients to receive new heart, the patients with lung failure to breathe through new lungs and the blind people would again be able to see the colours of life after receiving cornea.
Speaking on the occasion, Professor Dr Farhat Moazzam said donating an organ to another person goes beyond purely the medical to cultural, social and religious values. She said SIUT was going to launch Deceased Donor Programme (DDP), because live donors would not be enough to transplant such a huge number of organ failure patients. She said the institute would soon start campaign for cadaver donation.
She informed the participants that the Director SIUT Professor Adib-ul Hassan Rizvi has been invited by World Health Organisation (WHO) to design a way to extend organ donation system in other backward areas of the world. Professor Khalfe Bille, Regional Head of WHO said law would play a pivotal role in ethical organ donation.
The law would curb organ trafficking and transplant tourism. "It heralded the era of deceased organ donation, which would benefit not only patients of kidney failure, but also those in need of liver, heart, lungs and cornea transplantation," he said.
Director SIUT Professor Adib-ul Hasan Rizvi thanked President Zardari, who pledged to donate his organs for providing relief to patients of organ failure. He said print/electronic media and civil society, the country's two most powerful pillars, have also helped to get this law passed from parliament. "The elected cabinet has proved that we are not a conservative, fundamentalist or orthodox nation," he added.
He said SIUT had established a new record of organ transplant by replacing faulty organs of 544 patients with new one last year, which has become a world record. He thanked the president, members of national assembly, the senate, standing committees on health and human rights, higher judiciary and the federal sharia court, print and electronic media and the general public for their support and co-operation.