Doha
Qatar’s pioneering Organ Donor Registry has marked a major milestone by exceeding 100,000 registered donors, it was announced on Monday.
An education and outreach campaign during Ramadan and throughout the year saw the number of registered organ donors more than double from 43,000 in March to above 100,000 and counting as of Monday.
This year the Qatar Organ Donation Centre (Hiba) continued its successful campaign to enrol new donors, taking its message to 12 shopping malls across the country as well to as to other major events and schools.
Hamad Medical Corporation’s (HMC) managing director Dr. Hanan al-Kuwari said the milestone was a remarkable achievement for the internationally recognised programme.
“Reaching 100,000 registered donors was achieved through the great efforts of Hiba and its supporters in the community,” stated Dr. al-Kuwari, herself a registered organ donor.
“We especially owe a great deal of gratitude to HH Sheikha Moza bint Nasser for her unwavering support for our programme. Through her generous act of registering as an organ donor, Her Highness made a clear and unequivocal pledge to support organ donation and her demonstration of leadership by example helped tremendously in encouraging more people in Qatar to register as organ donors.
“Central to HMC’s efforts to expand the programme and encourage registrations is our commitment to education - about the benefits of organ donation and the process. This means people in the community can make an informed decision to give the gift of life,” she observed.
An organ transplant can be life-saving and significantly improve quality of life for someone with chronic organ failure. The organs come from deceased donors, who pledged during their lives to give their organs. A deceased organ donor can save up to eight lives. It is also possible to donate a kidney or part of the liver while one is alive, to a relative.
Dr al-Kuwari said that Qatar’s organ donation and transplantation programme’s success was built on the strict implementation of the Doha Donation Accord which ensures ethical standards and equitable treatment for donors and recipients.
"There has been a significant drop in the number of patients going abroad for transplantation procedures, which is a great encouragement for us to further enhance our services to achieve our goal of self-sufficiency in terms of organ donation and transplantation,” Dr. al-Kuwari noted.
“The growth of the registry is unprecedented in the region. Qatar is one of the few countries in the region offering integrated organ transplantation services and on the basis of a single unified national waiting list,” she added.
