Gov’t urged to take steps addressing challenges facing organ donation

AMMAN — Organ donations from brain dead patients and the living cover between 1 and 25 per cent of overall transplant needs in the Kingdom, according to the Directorate of the Jordan Centre for Organ Transplant.

Head of the directorate Abdel Hadi Braizat noted that 99 per cent of these donations come from the living, while 1 per cent is provided by brain dead patients.

The directorate recorded six cases of organ donation in 2019 out of the 48 brain death cases recorded by public and private hospitals in the Kingdom. 

Braizat stressed the importance of the national programme for organ donation, which was recently launched with the support of HH Prince Raad, president of the Jordanian Association for the Promotion of Organ Donation, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

He stated that the number of people on the national wait list of registered organ failure patients requiring transplants has been updated, standing at 414 patients.

The director said that in 2019, 175 organ transplants took place in the Kingdom for Jordanian and non-Jordanian patients, with 160 kidney transplants and 15 liver transplants.

Braizat noted that the process of organ donation, transportation and transplantation in the Kingdom still faces many obstacles, including health-related and social challenges.

He added that these difficulties are “exacerbated by the absence of an integrated national strategy for organ donation and transplantation”, and the government’s “failure” to adopt the national programme for organ donation as a national policy.

Challenges also include medical personnel's lack of experience in dealing with the families of the deceased when it comes to presenting the option of organ donation, he noted.

Braizat added that a digital organ transplant system has been developed by the directorate, which will be linked to intensive care departments in hospitals to follow up on cases of brain death.