More and more Saudis are suffering from kidney-related ailments. Over 11,000 Saudis are enduring kidney failure and 40 percent of them are in urgent need of kidney transplantation, Dr. Faisal Shahin, head of the Saudi Organ Transplantation Center, has said. The waiting list for liver and heart transplantations is also growing with about 500 patients awaiting liver and 200 patients need heart transplantations respectively, he said. Dr. Shahin said the center encourages donors and helps them financially too. “If the health condition of a person does not permit him/her to work after the donation is done, the center would pay the equivalent of his/her monthly salary,” he said. Further, donors receive lifelong transportation allowances and medical care, including medical insurance. Dr. Shahin said there was a wide gap between the numbers of the brain-dead in Saudi Arabia and the number of donors. “The number of brain-dead individuals in Saudi Arabia is 500 per year. However, the number of donors does not even amount to 30 percent of that figure,” he told Al-Hayat. Commenting on the reluctance of families of the brain-dead patients to donate the required organs, Dr. Shahin said mainly social causes are behind this disinclination. “Moreover, the families also believe that as long as kidney, liver and heart of a patient are functioning, he/she could recover one day,” he said. Dr. Shahin also cited psychological and religious reasons. This happens even when the Shariah has not proscribed organ donation, he said. Over SR2 million have already been spent on kidney failure patients, Dr. Shahin said. Approximately, 3,500 kidney, 600 liver and 127 heart transplantations have already been performed at the center, Dr. Shahin said. The success rate of heart and liver transplantation in Saudi Arabia has reached 85 percent and 70 percent respectively, he said. Dwelling on the religious aspect, Dr. Shahin said a number of Saudi clerics deem organ donation and the removal of artificial resuscitation devices in the case of brain-dead people as lawful. “The edict issued by the Islamic Jurisprudence Academy in 1987 allowed removal of resuscitation equipment on a brain-dead patient,” he elaborated. “There is a pressing need to educate Imams of mosques on this issue,” he said. __
