UAE plans to establish organ transplant registry in March
Residents in country can join to donate or receive organs
Anationwide organ transplant registry will soon open in the UAE making it easier for donations of the heart, liver and lungs, said a senior official
“We expect to open a donor registry for people across the country within the next month, as well as a national transplant list that includes details of patients in need and the organs they require,” Dr Ali Al Obaidli, chairman of the committee, told Gulf News.
“As has always been the case, anyone in the UAE — regardless of nationality — can become a donor, or receive an organ during a transplant surgery,” he added. Although the UAE now has its own multiorgan transplant programme at Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi, the absence of a donor registry meant that residents must rely on family members to provide consent for organ donation after their death.
A lthough the UAE now has its own multi-organ transplant programme at Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi, the absence of a nationwide donor registry means that residents must still rely on family members to provide consent for organ donation after their death.
It is this kind of consent from family members that has facilitated the donation of kidneys from the deceased since the UAE’s revised organ transplant law came into effect in March 2017, as well as the donation of the heart, liver and lungs in the nation’s first transplantation of these organs.
Transplant programme
The Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi, an Abu Dhabi Governmentowned multi-speciality hospital, announced on February 20 the launch of its multi-organ transplant programme, following the completion of the first full liver and first lung transplant, earlier this month. Last year, the hospital undertook its first heart transplant in December, and its first kidney transplant from a deceased donor in September.
A top official from the National Transplant Committee has confirmed, however, that this is soon set to change, with plans nearly in place to activate a donor registry.
“We expect to open a donor registry for people across the country within the next month, as well as a national transplant list that includes details of patients in need and the organs they require,” Dr Ali Al Obaidli, chairman of the committee, told Gulf News.
“As has always been the case, anyone in the UAE — regardless of nationality — can become a donor, or receive an organ during a transplant surgery,” he added.
In fact, the committee is expected to make an important press announcement in the capital today regarding the national programme for organ transplantation.
The UAE passed its first law on organ transplants in 1993. Under this regulation, transplants were allowed between living donors who were related. This meant that only kidneys and parts of the liver could legally be transplanted in the country, as organs like the heart and lungs can only be acquired from brain-dead persons. For years, the Shaikh Khalifa Medical City, a public health care facility in the capital, was the only authorised organ transplantation centre.
In September 2016, President His Highness Shaikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan passed a new law to authorise transplantation from deceased donors, marking the UAE’s acceptance of the Gulfwide medically agreed-upon definition of brain death.
Brain death
“A number of criteria must be met for a person to be declared brain-dead, most importantly that there should be no blood flow to the brain. In addition, three physicians, including a neurologist, must certify a person as brain-dead for them to be identified as such,” said Dr Basheer Sankari, head of the transplant programme at the Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi.
But the process of establishing a robust transplant programme began years ago. The UAE Ministry of Health and Prevention and the National Transplant Committee worked with other transplantation committees, including the Barcelona Transplantation Society and the Saudi Centre for Organ Transplantation, to train physicians at health care facilities across the UAE to accurately identify brain death.
The UAE currently has three certified centres for organ transplantation at the Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi, the Shaikh Khalifa Medical City and the Mediclinic City Hospital Dubai, Dr Sankari said. Each maintains its own waiting list of patients who require organ transplants, including vital details to make a match, such as the patient’s blood type, HLA type (antigens on white blood cells that determine tissue compatibility for organ transplantation), age and weight.
In addition, the National Transplant Committee coordinates with organ transplantation centres across the Gulf countries for organs.
Once a patient is identi-
fied as brain-dead, the National Transplant Committee deploys a trained sub-group of professionals to inform the family of the deceased, and obtains the required consent.
The facility then contacts all organ transplantation centres in the UAE and the region to see if any of the available organs are required by patients on their waiting list, and if there is a potential match given the donor’s blood type, HLA type, age and weight.
The transplant centre sends out a team of two surgeons and a nurse to recover the organ. If the facility is more than 40 minutes away by road, the hospital seeks the help of the Abu Dhabi Police air ambulance to hasten the transport of harvested organs.
Meanwhile, the matched recipient is asked to come in to the transplant facility to be tested again, and to prepare for a possible transplant surgery.
Once the organs are harvested, the rush for time begins. While kidneys remain viable for transplant up to 24 hours after harvesting, a heart must be transplanted within four to six hours, lungs within six to eight hours, and livers within eight to ten hours after harvesting.