Thursday 20 / February / 2025
Muscat: The Minister of Health issued a ministerial decision to establish a national programme to organise the transfer and transplantation of human organs and tissues, in order to provide the service of conducting various organ transplantation operations inside the Sultanate.
According to the decision, the programme, in its first stage, will establish a base data that includes organ donors and human tissues, a register of organic deficiencies, a waiting list for organ transplantation operations and provisions of all necessary equipment for transplantation, in addition to registering Oman in international observatories for organ transplantation.
The National Programme for Human Organ and Tissue Transplantation said, “The field of donation and organ transplantation still poses the most important challenges in the field of health services, and to this day lung, pancreatic and heart transplantation services are not available in the Sultanate, and limited liver transplantation operations have been performed. This forces many patients to travel abroad to receive treatment either at their own expense or at government expense, in addition to its high cost.”
“This matter has led to a lot of suffering for the patients and their families, and many patients have been exposed to danger and legal accountability because of their going to the black market to buy human organs,” the ministry added.
In its second phase, the programme aims to achieve 100% kidney transplants surgery to be done inside the Sultanate, and to be able do half of the liver transplants and half of the marrow transplants, as well as the majority of corneal transplants inside the Sultanate.
The programme also aims, in its third phase, to conduct all liver and bone marrow transplants inside the Sultanate from cases that are sent abroad, and to start performing pancreatic operations and preparing to acquire the necessary equipment for lung transplantations.
In the fourth phase, the programme also seeks to start conducting lung transplantation operations and finally to start heart transplantation operations in the fifth phase.
