Dr Fehmida Mirza, the National Assembly Speaker, would inaugurate the symposium being organised on Organ Donation Day at the Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation (SIUT) on Saturday.
The day-long programme is being organised by the Transplantation Society of Pakistan in collaboration with the Pakistan Society of Nephrology, the Pakistan Association of Urological Surgeons and the SIUT to commemorate Organ Donation Day 2012.
The symposium would include a series of public awareness programmes, exhibitions and pledge posthumous donation of organs by people in general.
Organisers of the event said that there is an urgent need to promote the culture of cadaver organ donation, as thousands of people suffering from organ failure lose their lives for want of organs.
Cadaver organ donation has become all the more important as non-availability of living donors has turned resource-less sections of the society an easy victim of exploitation.
“Their poverty compels them to sell their organs and there is also no dearth of instances when unassuming and resource-less people are deprived of their organ without their consent,” the organisers said in response to a question.
Answering another question, they said that the existent law to counter unethical practices registered in context of live organ donations needs to be implemented in letter and spirit.
They agreed that there have also been instances when tissue matching turns to be a hindrance for parents or siblings keen to donate organs to their loved ones suffering from organ failure.
“Availability of cadaver organs cannot only help solve the problem of the people striving for a new lease of life, but can also put to halt the exploitation of the economically weak sections of the society,” said the senior professional.
This would be pertinent to mention that cadaver organ donation has been approved by different schools of Islamic teachings, including the Al Azhar University, and is practised in countries like Iran and Saudi Arabia, besides other parts of the Muslim world.
NA speaker to chair symposium on Organ Donation Day
