6,600 patients in need of organ transplants

JEDDAH: A total of 6,600 patients are in dire need of organ transplants in the Kingdom, a health official has said.
“Six-thousand patients need kidneys, 500 require livers and 100 heart transplants,” Besher Al-Attar, the medical director at the Saudi Center for Organ Transplantation, was quoted as saying by local media.
He was speaking during a conference on organ transplants organized by Ethar Society, the charitable organization for promoting organ donation.
He said 760 kidneys and 180 livers were transplanted in 2015, noting that the rate of organ donation after deaths has improved compared to previous years.
“The number of brain-dead patients last year was 112, and a significant proportion of their organs have benefited many patients.”
Al-Attar said that the center holds medical seminars from time to time and invites doctors specializing in the intensive care departments along with those who deal with brain dead patients to familiarize the public on the importance of organ donation and the laws governing the process.
On the issue of linking the intensive care unit departments in hospitals with the center, he said: “We began the phase one of this process by linking 30 departments for intensive care through the Internet so that cases of brain dead patients can be reported electronically.
The preliminary results of this new initiative are encouraging in this regard.”
Saudi Arabia achieved an advanced place in the field of kidney transplant by coming within the first 10 countries of donating kidneys from living people.
The Kingdom was among the pioneering countries in transplanting kidneys from the brain-dead among Arab and Asian countries.