Oman announces national program for regulating organ and tissue transplant

Muscat: Dr. Ahmed Mohammed Al Sa’eedi, Minister of Health, issued a decision establishing the National Programme for Human Organ Transfer and Transplant.

The programme aims to enforce prescribed principles in the field of transferring and transplanting human organs and tissues, developing clinical research and implementing the recommendations of the technical committee tasked with regulating the profession.

This specialised national programme tackles one of the most sophisticated areas (human organ transfer and transplant) that poses the greatest challenge to health systems and requires coordination between different departments and specialists to find solutions to the challenges.

Transplanting alternative organs is considered the sole means of saving the life of patients suffering total organ failure, when donation remains the only option provided exclusively by people allowing re-use of their kidneys and livers during their life or after death.

Public collaboration is needed to encourage organ donation to save the life of about 3,000 patients suffering total kidney failure and relying on dialysis. A live donor has a chance to save the life of eight such patients.