Friday, 07 December 2012

DOHA: A senior official of Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) has called for a new law that authorises doctors to take brain-dead patients off the ventilator as a means to promote organ transplant in the country and address severe shortage of donors.

"There is no law in Qatar that authorises doctors to take a brain-dead patient off the ventilator. We just try to convince the families of such patients to donate their organs. In future we will need a law (for this purpose)," Dr Yousuf Al Maslamani, head of the Organ Transplant Committee at HMC, told local Arabic daily Al Arab in an interview.

The Emiri decree says that three specialist doctors should check the patient to make sure he is brain-dead and they have to sign a statement to this effect.

There is a Fatwa (religious edict) by renowned Qatar-based Islamic scholar Dr Yosuf Al Qaradawi that gives doctors the right to take a decision on brain-dead patients, if they are sure about his condition. The Fatwa is however not legally binding since it is only a religious opinion, said the official.

"This year, from January until the end of September there were 78 brain death cases at HMC but we could benefit from only two of those, both of Asians, in terms of organ transplant," said Al Maslamani.

He said Spain was leading in organ donation with 33 donors per million people while in the Middle East the ratio is as low as one per million.

"About 99 percent of the donors in Qatar are expatriates because Qataris have not yet accepted the idea of organ donation. And many Asians have reservations about operating on the body after death," he added.

He said the HMC was trying to promote organ donation by providing incentives to families of the brain-dead people such as financial support to take the body home, free air ticket and accommodation for one of the relatives visiting Qatar and air ticket for those accompanying the body home.

"Recently we signed an agreement with Qatar Charity for sponsoring the families of donors after death and we are waiting for other charities to follow suit," said Al Maslamani.

HMC has registered 4,500 potential donors who pledged to donate their organs after death. But transplant after death could be successful only in the case of brain-dead people. There are 150 kidney patients and 23 liver patients at HMC currently waiting a transplant.

HMC until now performed three liver transplant surgeries - one last year and two this year. Cornea transplant is the most common in Qatar because cornea can be successfully transplanted even after the death of the donor. Annually HMC performs 20 such operations, said Al Maslamani. 

© The Peninsula 2012