12.5% of Saudis are organ donor cardholders

JEDDAH: Four million people in Saudi Arabia hold an organ donor card, comprising 12.5 percent of the population, the head of the Saudi Center for Organ Transplantation (SCOT) told Arab News.
The number of organ transplants increased slightly from 1,036 in 2015 to 1,082 in 2016, said Dr. Faissal Shaheen, SCOT general director and senior consultant physician and nephrologist.
The organ donor card shows the donor’s willingness to give away their organs after death, but it is not obligatory.
The culture of having an organ donor card is still not widespread in the Kingdom, but there are efforts to raise awareness.
Shaheen said the lack of healthy organs available for transplant needs highlighting. “SCOT works to achieve self-sufficiency and solve the problem of organ shortage, which is a global problem,” he said. “There’s still a lot (to do) to fill the gap between demand and supply of organs.”
The donor card is available in all health and dialysis centers in the Kingdom, and is distributed at national occasions and scientific events.
Since the topic has long been surrounded by ambiguity for religious and cultural reasons, Shaheen said religious scholars have an important role to play to support organ donation.
A 1982 fatwa (religious edict) by the Senior Ulama Commission concerning organ donation and transplantation stressed “the permissibility to remove an organ or part thereof from a dead person,” and the permissibility of a living person donating an organ or part of it.
According to figures provided by SCOT, between 1986 and 2016 there were 13,174 organs from living and deceased donors transplanted, including 10,569 kidneys, 2,006 livers, 339 hearts, 213 lungs, 46 pancreases and one small intestine.
There were 1,767 tissues recovered, including 628 hearts as sources of valves, 698 corneas, 324 bones and 117 musculoskeletal tissues.