Organ donation...a gift of life!

A ten-year-old daughter had what looked like the flu: persistent fever, vomiting, dizziness and fainting. On her third trip to the pediatrician, the doctor asked the family to take her to the emergency room. There, a blood test reported scary news: Her kidneys had stopped working! And here she was put in an ambulance and rushed to a nearby hospital that has a pediatric nephrology unit, which made her undergo dialysis immediately, perhaps saving her life!

We may realize here that, unfortunately for that girl, dialysis also threatened to take over her life. May be because it is a long-term treatment for permanent kidney failure, dialysis is good as well as bad news for that child, given other dimensions of her or any other child’s life. It preserves life, but it is often demoralizing! Moreover, dialysis patients are susceptible to anemia, weight gain, low blood pressure and infection from catheterization. In fact they gradually lose the ability to urinate and can drink very little of anything! Many children on dialysis experience stunted growth. However, unfortunately I would sometimes say that dialysis does not make patients well, it simply postpones their death!

Somehow, when we return to that child, the doctors discover that she has a rare genetic disorder that has no cure. But there is one treatment that can solve the problem for years, even decades: a kidney transplant!

Sure, we can find enough kidney donors to end this child’s crisis, but what about other people’s lives...those who might need a transplant? Therefore, solving this problem requires creativity, audacity and above all, a sense of urgency. That is why a few years ago, a national program was launched in the Sultanate of Oman to organize organs transplant and donation , not to mention the establishment of an Omani association for it. Imagine with me the frustration of watching your sister or daughter die of kidney failure and that you are ready and healthy enough to donate to her and restore her life.

In general, with the progress in the donor and transplant with the cultural and societal shift in the world of organ transplantation, away from the legalization of cadaveric organs and towards the search for living donors, I believe that we must continue to build a relatively new idea, religious and ethical: that strangers give organs to strangers – and it all has its reward – with a growing conviction that rewarding patients for waiting their turn while their health deteriorates is unnecessary and they deserve another chance at life.

In the end, those families who are unwilling to accept that no more can be done to save their loved ones, have always tried to attract the attention of people and society and we are with them to say that organ transplantation and donation has become a hope and gift for a new life and that something better should be possible. Hence, in ways we’ve never imagined before, we can transform death and pain into life and hope.