ONE REASON there has been a growing ?trade? in organs, particularly in kidneys, in this country is that the donation of healthy organs from brain-dead donors has yet to take off in significant numbers.
There is a strong cultural bias against organ donation, with family members or survivors of individuals declared brain-dead reluctant if not actually repulsed by the harvesting of organs for transplantation to others in dire need of them. This is why the Department of Health recently launched a campaign to encourage the use of harvested organs from deceased donors and to regulate if not do away altogether with the continuing use of ?living non-related donors? who allow their organs to be harvested in exchange for an agreed sum.
But the drive to encourage the use of organs from deceased donors recently hit a snag with the incident involving an organ retrieval team of the National Kidney and Transplant Institute (NKTI) which was not allowed to board a Cebu Pacific flight from Legazpi, Albay to Manila.
According to an account of the team, consisting of a transplant coordinator (a nurse) and two doctors, they were bringing to Manila a pair of deceased donor kidneys they were able to harvest earlier that day. They were in a rush because the donated kidneys were highly perishable and there were at least two critically ill patients waiting for the life-saving organs to be transplanted to them.
Despite a long-standing directive from the DoH, and the team?s previous experience in transporting by plane such needed organs, the team was not allowed to board the plane with the kidneys as carry-on luggage. The pilot claimed that the cooler might leak and inconvenience the other passengers. A later explanation by the airline said they had offered to place the container bearing the kidneys in the cargo hold but the team members said they were afraid the fragile organs might be mishandled.
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IN THE end, despite the pleadings of the team, they were not allowed to board the flight. Instead, they took a long land trip, about 10-12 hours long, to Manila by which time one of the kidneys was no longer suitable for transplant. The other kidney was eventually transplanted to one patient, but considering the compromised quality of the organ, the outcome for the patient is still ?guarded.?
Cebu Pacific has said it is willing to sit with NKTI doctors or the DoH on the formulation of ?guidelines? to follow regarding the carrying on board of such fragile and delicate cargo as donated kidneys. But the transport of donated organs is already covered by DoH protocols, and it seems unreasonable, at best, for a pilot to care more for the comfort level of other passengers than the survival of patients suffering from end-stage renal disease and severely in need of donated kidneys. As Dr. Reynaldo Lesaca, one of the doctors in the team, said in a letter: ?All sectors of society need to be more sensitive to the efforts of the medical community in saving lives.?
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FROM Sept. 15-17, government leaders, legislators, maternal and newborn health experts, health practitioners, development workers, young leaders and civil society representatives from the Philippines and abroad will be meeting for the first-ever Women Deliver Philippines conference on maternal and newborn health.
United Nations resident coordinator Jacqueline Badcock, United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) regional director for Asia Pacific Nobuko Horibe, Ambassador Alistair MacDonald of the Delegation of the European Union to the Philippines, and other UN and foreign dignitaries will join Health Secretary Enrique Ona, Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. and other government and development leaders at the conference to promote investment in women and share solutions that can empower women and bring down maternal and newborn deaths.
To be held at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, the conference aims to unite diverse sectors with high-level representation?from education, health, development, women, youth, business and religious groups?to generate political commitment and financial investment to act on the issues of women?s and newborns? survival. The conference is organized by the DoH, the United Nations and Likhaan Center for Women?s Health, with support from the European Union.
Local and international resource persons for the three-day conference will discuss critical issues around maternal and newborn health such as legislative efforts to expedite achievement of Millennium Development Goal 5, calling for the reduction of maternal mortality rates.
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?WOMEN DELIVER? was first held in London in 2007 to mark the 20th year of the Safe Mother Initiative (SMI) that was launched in Kenya in 1987 seeking to address the tragedy of half-a-million women dying during pregnancy and childbirth. The second ?Women Deliver? international conference was held earlier this year in Washington, D.C.
The irony is that the world has known that effective remedies exist to bring down the toll of maternal mortality around the world, including giving women the means to plan and time their pregnancies, ensuring the attendance of a trained provider during pregnancy and delivery, and access to emergency obstetric and newborn care in a functional health system. The main stumbling block, it seems, is the lack of both public and private investment in these remedies, including the provision of all the necessary public works facilities and means of transportation to facilitate bringing women to health facilities when the need arises.
For more information on the Women Deliver Philippines conference, contact Likhaan Center for Women?s Health at Tel. No. 926-6230 or e-mail office@likhaan.org.
