Minister of Public Health HE Dr Hanan Mohamed Al Kuwari met the family of a deceased organ donor whose selfless act of organ donation changed the lives of three people awaiting organ transplants. Surgeons at Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) performed the life-saving surgeries last week with the recipients on the road to recovery.

In the first organ donation and transplant procedures performed since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the 26-year old donor shared his two kidneys and a liver, with the blessing of his family. His kidneys were transplanted to two people – a man aged 63 and a 15-year-old female patient (whose transplant procedure was performed at Sidra Medicine). His liver was donated to a 35-year-old woman in another surgery performed by HMC’s highly trained surgeons.

In another selfless act, a young female law student aged 22 donated one of her kidneys to her father. This procedure was performed three weeks ago, and the father is currently recovering under the care of HMC teams.

HE Dr Al Kuwari met with the family of the deceased donor and thanked them for their altruistic act. She also met with the recipients and their families at Hamad General Hospital and with the young living donor and her father. He said:

Organ donation is not only an act of true compassion; it also saves lives. The success of Qatar’s organ donation and transplantation programs is something which we can be extremely proud of. We have a single, unified waiting list and we have in place exemplary care and ongoing support for donors and their families. Qatar’s national strategy for organ donation and transplantation is not only world-leading in terms of the clinical and ethical standards it applies, Qatar also has the depth of clinical expertise and facilities to perform these procedures and provide safe and effective follow-up care for transplant patients.

 

Dr Yousuf Al Maslamani, Medical Director at Hamad General Hospital, and Director of Qatar Center for Organ Transplantation (QCOT), said the team had five kidney transplant procedures scheduled for December with the organs being donated from live donors.

 

An organ transplant can be a life-saving procedure and it can also significantly improve the quality of life for someone with chronic organ failure… Now we have emerged from COVID-19 and we are opening up more services, we have been able to restart our organ transplantation program.  This could not happen without the multidisciplinary teamwork involving the organ donation team, transplant surgeons, nephrologists, hepatologists, the histocompatibility lab, and the highly skilled nursing staff. We have the technology, facilities and access to the expertise in Qatar to perform these surgeries and we also have overwhelming community support for the organ donation program. Since the Qatar Organ Donor Registry was launched in 2012, more than 430,000 donors have signed up to become an organ donor.

 

The man who was a recipient of a kidney from his daughter praised the care and support provided to him and his family by HMC. He said:

I am thankful to my doctors and the entire team who has cared for me… I am also grateful I was able to have this lifechanging procedure here in Qatar and did not need to travel abroad. This has been of great comfort to me and my family.

For more information about organ donation in Qatar please go to: https://www.hamad.qa/EN/your%20health/Organ-Donation/Pages/default.aspx