Kazakhstan mulls transplanting organs without notifying families

Emergency organ transplantation without notification of the patient’s families, in case they are not immediately available, may be put into a law in Kazakhstan. The Healthcare Ministry of Kazakhstan has offers to add this amendment to the Kazakhstan Health Code, Tengrinews.kz reports. "Emergency transplantation may be performed based on the decision of the council of doctors without obtaining the permission from the family or legal representatives of the patient if they are not available. The procedure shall be registered in the medical documents and the Healthcare Authorities shall be notified within 24 hours," the Healthcare Ministry's wording proposed to the Majilis (Lower Chamber of the Parliament) said. According to the Executive Secretary of the Healthcare Ministry Serikbol Mussinov, who presented the document, it is planned to clearly specify in the law that persons with life-threatening diseases and pregnant women may not become live donors. "Those donating for free shall get an additional paid vacation day. The provision is introduced to simulate voluntary free donorship," Mussinov said. It will most likely motivate blood and sperm donors that are highly demanded in Kazakhstan. We would also like to introduce a clarifying provision that tissues and organs from live donor can be taken only with the notarized consent signed by the said donor, except for cases of donorship of hematopoietic stem cells, in this case notarization of the donors consent is not required," Mussinov said. He added that to bring Kazakhstan's practices closer to the international standards a provision creating the National Registrar of Hematopoietic Stem Cells Donors would be introduced into the law. The registrar will be exchanging its databases will foreign registrars. Almost 2 thousand people are in need of organs transplantation in Kazakhstan. In particular, 1,609 patients need kidneys transplantation, 80 people are on the wait-list for donor hearts and 268 require liver transplantation. According to the Ministry, Kazakhstan is taking big steps to develop domestic transplantology. 93 surgeries on organs and bone marrow transplantation were performed in the first half of 2013 in Kazakhstan, compared to 74 surgeries in 2012 and only 4 in 2009. Kazakhstan Healthcare Ministry is working to put together a national registrar of donors, recipients and persons awaiting transplantation. According to the Ministry’s Department of Medical Aid Organization, this registrar will also contain information on consent or dissent for donorship. Information on the patient's willingness to donate organs and tissues will be made available to the doctors only after pronouncement of the patient's death. The system will be integrated with other information services of the Ministry via secure lines. By Altynai Zhumzhumina