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Guyana to benefit from cadaveric transplants by year end
Kaieteur News – As efforts to start cadaveric (dead donor) transplant in Guyana gets underway, the local medical team behind the implementation of the recently passed law, is hoping to commence transplants by year end.
This is according to Dr. Kishore Persaud, Head of the Transplant and Vascular Department at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC). Dr. Persaud is the head of the medical team behind the ambitious push to get Guyana equipped to conduct cadaveric organ transplant surgeries.
He told Kaieteur Radio, during an airing of the Your Health Matters programme on Monday that efforts to get other medical staff of the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation on board with the plan has already started.
Dr. Kishore Persaud, Head of the Transplant and Vascular Department
“The medical staff at the ICU [Intensive Care Unit] at the GPHC is already on board with what we are doing… we have staff trained in terms of brain dead support services and we are working with the Ministry of Health to develop a strategy to educate the wider population on the benefits of organ donor transplants,” Dr. Persaud said.
According to him, having the necessary equipment and adequately trained staff is another key step towards making the cadaveric transplantation a reality.
Dr. Persaud said that he and his team have been in close contact with the current Advisor to the Minister of Health, Dr. Leslie Ramsammy to get this component of the plan up and running.
Dr. Ramsammy, a former Minister of Health, has also played a vital role in the efforts to make the Human Organ and Tissue Transplant law a reality.
According to Dr. Persaud, with support from Dr. Ramsammy’s office, he and his team are hoping to procure the instrument to tissue typing (blood work) tests for the organ transplant to be conducted here.
Dr. Persaud explained that the blood work component is vital to the procedure being done here.
“What usually happens is we send samples for testing till in Miami just to see if the donor matches with the patient which can cost at least a G$1 million. With cadaveric transplants, we need to be able to conduct these tests ourselves and we need to have our staff trained to do so,” he added.
Dr. Persaud is confident that with the right support, Guyanese can benefit from the first successful cadaveric transplant by year end.
“The National Reference Lab and the Guyana Blood Transfusion Service already have some of the equipment, so we have some capacity for testing we just need the additional material,” he said.
Last January, the Human Organ and Tissue Transplant Bill 2021 was passed to allow for the donation of organs after the patient dies.
The legislation now also ensures that blood transfusion is done by consent, by an adult who is of sound mind.
Additionally, under the law, a National Donor Transplant Registry will be established to manage the process effectively and a Human Organ and Tissue Transplant Agency will oversee all future transplants of cells, biofluids, tissues and organs in Guyana.
Government says the registry will have a list of the persons who have consented to donations and another list of patients who require these donations. It prescribes the eligibility for live adult donors before they are enrolled into the registry, depending on whether their donation is a regenerative or non-regenerative organ.
According to the Human Organ and Tissue Transplant law 2021, live minor donors or their parents or guardians can only consent to remove a regenerative organ.
Further, a child can only donate a regenerative organ after an assessment by an Independent Assessment Committee. In keeping with international best practices, unless the Independent Assessment Committee unanimously agrees, the donation cannot proceed.
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