Over 80 percent of Kazakhstan patients do not make it to transplantation

Over 80 percent of Kazakhstan patients who need organs transplantation do not make it to transplantation because of donors deficiency, Daniyar Toksanbayev, head of liver, biliary tracts and pancreatic gland surgery department of Syzganov National Scientific Surgery Center told Tengrinews.kz. “Almost 85-88 percent of the patients don’t make it to the transplantation, because the waiting list is very long and we do only a small number of organs transplantation,” Toksanbayev said after press-conference on development of transplantology in Kazakhstan. According to statistics, 150-160 people a year require heart transplantation in Kazakhstan, and 1,200 patients a year are in need of a liver transplantation. Despite of the availability of trained experts, well-developed legislative base and technical equipment, the search for donors and obtaining of approvals for donorship from their families remains the main difficulty in Kazakhstan. “Right now development of transplantology is restrained by the lack of donors. The liver and kidneys transplantations that have been successfully performed in our hospital have become possible because of family members donated organs for the patients. Unfortunately, heart is an indivisible organ and here we fully depend on the readiness of the potential donors' families. Unfortunately, an offer to extract an organ and transplant it to a sick person is still treated as a “mockery” over the relative by most of the families. We need to form a better attitude to donorship, and get people to understand that this is a way to leave a part of their beloved relative alive in another person,” head of cardiosurgery department of Syzganov National Scientific Surgery Center Arystan Seidalin said at the press-conference. Participants of the press-conference also added that there are special psychologists who communicate with the families trying to resolve the issues of extracting organs. “We even have representatives of various religious confessions who offer their help in dispersing religious superstitions,” deputy Director on Scientific-Clinical Work of Syzganov National Scientific Surgery Center Manas Ramazanov said. Answering the question whether Kazakhstan legislation should have provisions allowing testaments of willful donations or written statements permitting the use of organs in case of a sudden death, e.g. use of organ donation information on an individual's driver's license or other documents, Ramazanov said that it would be “too much”. “Transplantology is developing gradually in Kazakhstan. If we approach the Interior Ministry or the Migration Police straight away and initiate entrance of the information on individuals' willingness to donate organs in case of some emergency into driver’s licenses or house registers, it would be too much. Maybe in future, when the mentality of our people changes towards a more positive attitude, will be able to start talking about this,” he said and added that development and acceptance of transplantology were the processes that take time. Liver and kidney transplantation surgeries are already performed in Kazakhstan. Starting from December 2011 Syzganov National Scientific Surgery Center has performed 4 liver transplantation surgeries. Kidneys transplantation was first performed in Kazakhstan in 1978 and over 600 such surgeries were performed since then. Besides, Kazakhstan doctors were the first ones in Central Asia to transplant a donor heart recently.