US-based Foundation engages Ministry on fast-tracking law for organ harvesting

Feb 04, 2018 News

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Guyana could soon start to put in motion legislative measures to foster organ harvesting. This is in light of what has been described as a fruitful meeting on Friday last, between senior officials of the Ministry of Public Health, the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation [GPHC] and the United States-based Subraj Family Foundation.
Supporting the discussion as part of the Subraj team was reputable Transplant Surgeon, Dr. Stephen Guy, of Drexel University Medical School in the United States.
The Foundation, founded by the late Philanthropist, George Subraj, is one that has been lending its support to Guyana, especially in the area of health care, for a number of years.
As part of its support to the local health sector, the Foundation, which is now being spearheaded by Subraj’s wife, Gloria, and children Tony and Jasmine, has been continuing the advocacy for Guyana to implement an organ harvesting system. The principals of the Foundation see this move as particularly important if Guyana is to retain a sustainable transplant programme.
Following Friday’s meeting, Tony Subraj, who is currently part of the Subraj Foundation team visiting Guyana, said, “We are very excited. We know that there are a lot of things to overcome; there are a lot of challenges, but we are happy to help draft a legislation to hopefully get an eye bank and organ harvesting going here in Guyana. We know it is a long road, but we hope we can help move this along,” he added.
The Subraj Foundation has been instrumental in helping Guyana undertake a number of kidney transplant and corneal transplants. For the latter surgical procedure, the Subraj Foundation has been able to furnish Guyana [the GPHC] with corneas from the United States.
But Guyana could be able to harvest its own corneas and other organs too, for transplantation, once legislation is in place to facilitate this.
“All along we believe that Guyana can sustain itself, and that would be possible if we were to get working on legislation to start to do organ harvesting locally, not just for cornea, not just for kidney, but hopefully for everything [organs],” said Tony Subraj.
Speaking of the moves in this direction, Dr. Guy said that through the Subraj Foundation, he will be willing to lend his expertise to Guyana.
“On the surface it seems relatively straightforward…when a person passes away from a stroke or trauma, in the United States and most of the countries in Europe, they are considered brain dead, and that is one of the things that we are looking to find out if that will work here,” Dr. Guy said.
He pointed out that although a person is declared legally dead, harvesting organs requires that their body be kept alive, complete with a beating heart. This is imperative if the organs are to be useful to another body in need of them. But putting such a programme in motion would require legislative backing even for the simple process of harvesting corneas which, according to Dr. Guy, does not require that the body be kept alive.
“Corneas don’t need to have a beating heart to remove them. So the person could have already passed, their heart could have stopped beating, I think up to 12 hours after, and you can take the cornea. So I think this is the first place Guyana can start in harvesting organs…setting up an eye bank,” Dr. Guy said.
He is convinced that if the suitable infrastructure and personnel, for the harvesting of organs, are in place, it could essentially help to bolster, for instance, GPHC’s kidney transplant programme. Of course poised to do this is the Ophthalmology Unit of the GPHC.
Consultant Ophthalmologist of the Department, Dr. Shailendra Sugrim, had told this publication that GPHC was looking to embrace the introduction of an eye bank which has been encouraged by the experts of the Subraj Foundation. The Foundation, he’d informed, was “pushing for an eye bank here, but I would prefer to have somebody trained to specialise in this area before we venture out into that kind of thing.”
Dr. Sugrim during an earlier interview with this publication had revealed, too, that a junior doctor had already expressed interest in undergoing such training. The doctor in question, according to Dr. Sugrim, was slated to be exposed to training overseas during the past year. “When that doctor comes back we will work with the Ministers of Public Health to push for the legislation and work towards getting the eye bank,” Dr. Sugrim had said.
Once the relevant legislation is in place, it is anticipated that the setting up of an eye bank could be in place within one year. With the legislation in place, it will allow for Guyana to harvest, store, and by extension, transplant corneas. In fact it is believed that Guyana could extend this service to the Caribbean too.

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