A law allowing transplants of dead people’s organs, which was issued last year by President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, will be implemented next month.
“We will have a group of patients ready should an organ be available,” The National quoted Dr. Nick Richards, chief executive and chief medical officer of Seha’s dialysis services, as saying.
The principle of donations from a dead person had been agreed on more than two years ago “but when it was declared, there still needed to be an agreement of what brain death was”, Richards reportedly said. “The new legislation will make it much clearer.”
The first and only kidney transplant from a deceased donor in the UAE was in 2013 – from a Saudi donor to a 23-year-old woman from Abu Dhabi, the report said.
The surgery was performed at Seha’s Sheikh Khalifa Medical City but other cases were held up while the medical liability law was drawn up. “The organ that came from Saudi Arabia was an exception but not the rule,” Richards reportedly said.
He reportedly hoped donations from deceased patients would begin in “the next couple of months”.
The country that carries out the highest number of kidney transplants is Spain – where 44 transplants a year are done per million of the population, reported The National, adding that the number is 34 for every million in the UK while in Abu Dhabi it is 17 for every million.
There are 1,100 people on dialysis in Abu Dhabi and 30 to 40 transplants are carried out a year at Sheikh Khalifa Medical City, the report said.
