Doha: With 365,000 people in Qatar’s organ donor registry by last week, it is hoped that this number will increase to 400,000 by the end of the year, said a senior official.
The number of registered cadaver donors had reached around 340,000 from around 100 nationalities in Qatar by the end of 2018 and it has increased by 25,000 in the first six months of this year.
“The number of registered donors keeps increasing as a result of the awareness among the community,” said Dr Yousuf Al Maslamani (pictured), Medical Director of Hamad Medical Corporation’s Hamad General Hospital and Director Qatar Centre for Organ Transplantation.
“At present there are 170 people including seven children on waiting list for a kidney transplant. We also have 12 people waiting for a liver transplant. They will be taken into surgery as soon as a donor is ready. As of now we have planned two kidney transplants within a month with living donors,” he added, while speaking to media persons on the sideline of an event held to mark the launch of paediatric renal transplant at Sidra Medicine recently.
He also pointed out that in future all paediatric organ transplants will be held at Sidra Medicine, but if the donor is a living adult, surgeons from HMC will perform the surgery to harvest the organ at Sidra Medicine.
An organ transplant can be a life-saving procedure and can significantly improve the quality of life for someone with chronic organ failure. A deceased organ donor can save up to eight lives.
