Several organ donors and families of donors were honoured by Minister of Public Health H E Dr Hanan Mohamed Al Kuwari, and senior officials at the Hamad Medical Corporation on Sunday during the Doha International Forum for Organ Donation held at the Sharq
DOHA: The Doha International Academy for Organ Donation (DIAOD) was launched on Sunday with the aim of promoting education and research in organ donation in Qatar and internationally.
The virtual academy was officially launched during the Doha International Forum for Organ Donation organized by the Qatar Organ Donation Center at Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC). DIAOD is the world’s first international academy on organ donation.
The Academy will function under the umbrella of HMC as an additional activity of the Qatar Organ Donation Centre (Hiba) and will also support Qatar to achieve self-sufficiency in organ donation and transplant.
The new academy aims eventually to become a hub for resources and training required to assist other countries to establish their own programmes. Qatar’s organ donation programme, with a unified national waiting list, has become a model for other countries to follow, said H E Dr Hanan Mohamed Al Kuwari, Minister of Public Health.
“Qatar’s national strategy for organ transplantation is not only world-leading in terms of the clinical and ethical standards it applies, but also one that is appropriate to the healthcare needs of our growing country and our diverse population…….With fairness and equity at its heart, our program has been recognized internationally and is something we can be proud of,” she said.
Dr Al Kuwari along with senior officials at the HMC honoured several living organ donors and families of diseased donors during the launch of DIAOD at Sharq Village and Spa.
DIAOD will be managed by a steering committee including an international advisory panel and HMC stakeholders. The launch of DIAOD also saw a group of six international leaders in organ donation and transplantation pledge their support for the Academy and further support for HMC’s goal to achieve self-sufficiency in organ donation.
They included Dr Dominique Martin, Senior Lecturer in Health Ethics at Deakin University in Australia, Professor Gabriel Danovitch from the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and Dr Mirela Busic, an expert on organ donation from Croatia.
Since 2011 the Hiba and the Qatar Center of Organ Transplantation has worked to implement the Doha Donation Accord known as the ‘Doha Model’ of organ donation.
“Since its launch in 2011 the ‘Doha Model’ of Organ Donation has achieved remarkable success in changing the attitudes of Qatar’s multicultural society and we have also seen an increase in donors,” said Dr Riadh Fadhil, Director, Hiba.
“As of now we 170,000 people have pledged their willingness to donate their organs after death and hope it would reach up to 200,000 by end of the year,” he added.
Over the last three decades, Qatar has developed a robust deceased donation program, liver transplantation program and pediatric kidney transplantation program. The waiting list for kidney and liver transplant has reduced during recent years as well as the number of people travelling abroad for commercial transplantation has dropped significantly.
“We have successfully increased the number of transplantation and decrease the number of patients who are traveling abroad for commercial transplantation by 70 percent,” said said Dr Yousef Al Maslamani, Medical Director of Hamad General Hospital.
Also plans are underway to introduce new organ transplant programs.
“Last year we launched our bone marrow transplantation program and currently we are at the final stage of preparation to launch pancreas transplantation and islet cell transplantation,” said Dr Al Maslamani. He, however, said that organ shortage still remains as a challenge that needs to be addressed by promoting deceased and live organ donations.
