Organ transplants rise 30%

RIYADH: There has been a 30 percent increase in the number of organ transplants in 2015 compared to the previous year because of a rise in brain dead people, a local publication reported Thursday.
Faisal Shaheen, director general of the Saudi Center for Organ Transplantation (SCOT), was quoted as saying that there was a 20 percent rise in brain dead people over the year.
He said there were annually about 1,200 cases of brain dead people, but most families refuse to donate their organs. If 50 percent of this number was donated, the center could transplant 500 livers, more than 1,000 kidneys and several lungs and hearts, he said.
Shaheen said that the second phase of its plan to link the center with other hospitals in the western region has been implemented. The intensive care units at all hospitals would soon be automatically linked via the Internet.
Shaheen made the comments in a speech delivered at the 2nd Gulf Organ Donor Management Conference organized by the Eithar Society and King Fahd Specialist Hospital in Dammam.
The two-day conference was launched under the auspices of Prince Saud bin Naif, governor of the Eastern Province, with the participation of 30 local and international experts, doctors and other health practitioners.
The participants at the conference discussed the latest developments in the field, including around kidney failure and the brain dead. The governor also honored three donors with the King Abdulaziz Medal, third class: Rashid Abdullah Alhajri, Mohammad Adnan Alahmadi and Waleed Alomran.