Kenya may soon have a legally adopted organ donation programme that has rules to guide the process and expand the possible sources of donor organs.
The Kenya Tissue and Transplant Authority has formed a National Tissue and Organ Transplant technical committee which is drafting regulations, standards and guidelines that will allow such an organ donation program.
This program will see organs harvested from dead patients to save lives of patients whose organs have failed.
Kenya Tissue and Transplant Authority acting director Dr. Nduku Kilonzo says this will see a shift from perennial reliance on family donation practices which have proved to be unreliable.
Speaking at the four-day Kenya Renal Association conference in Mombasa, Dr. Kilonzo said the country is facing a shortage of kidney donors leading to many Kenyans losing their lives and some incurring huge medical bills weekly in undergoing dialysis.
“We have to find a way of getting kidneys and other organs from people who have died. To do that we must have regulations. Kenyans must understand why we must do that, there are legal issues on who determines death, who does the transplant and who gets the organs once it’s done,” Dr. Kilonzo said.
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