LAHORE: So far since its inception, the Liver Transplant Unit of Kidney Centre of Shaikh Zayed Hospital (SZH) has performed over 70 liver transplants while over 300,000 patients of liver diseases are in need of a liver transplant due to which cadaver donation has become the need of the hour.
These views were expressed by Associate Prof Dr Amir Latif of SZH Liver Transplant Unit of Kidney Centre.
He claimed that if the required facilities are provided to their unit, they will be capable to perform 40 transplants per month.
He said that this is the first time in the public sector where a liver transplant is being performed in the lowest cost of Rs 3.5 million while the same transplant is performed in India and other neighbouring countries for Rs 6.5 million.
While responding to question, he said that after the liver transplant the survival ratio is 85 percent while the survival period might be different as some patients after the transplantation can live till 20 years.
He said liver diseases were increasing with a sharp pace in the country, adding that hundreds of patients were on a waiting list for the transplantation. The operation theatres can not be used in full scale due to lack of staff and required facilities including, non existence of two separate operation theatres, 8 medical officers and a senior registrar, Latif added.
He said the kidney of a donor could be transplanted to two persons.
“The liver can be donated to two persons as 30 per cent is enough for a healthy body. Even an alive person can donate 50 per cent of the liver,” he added.
He said that lungs and hearts can also be donated to an ailing person.
“According to the Cadaver Human Tissue Ordinance of 2009 and its passage in form of an act in the 18th Amendment, now it is a legal practice to transplant donated organs,” he said.
Latif was of his view that through cadaver donation, transplantations could be performed every year. “There is an urgent need to motivate people to donate their organs in the larger interest of ailing humanity,” he added.