Pretoria - As South Africa marks the national Kidney Awareness Week, from September 6 until the 10th, the Gauteng MEC for Health, Dr Nomathemba Mokgethi has appealed to community members to “give the gift of life” by donating critically needed organs or tissue to the 182 patients awaiting organ transplant at the Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital (CMJAH).
The majority of the patients on the organ transplant waiting list are requiring kidney transplants. Organs that are urgently needed in Gauteng include hearts, lungs, livers, kidneys and pancreas.
Tissue needed urgently include corneas, skin and long bones.
The organ transplant waiting list in Gauteng is made up of 168 adults and 14 children. These patients are ready for the transplant “as soon as a matching organ becomes available”.
Mokgethi said many lives could be saved by generous donations of urgently needed organs.
“As a society, we need to talk about organ donation. We can save many lives and remove people off dialysis when more people donate organs. We can give a gift of life not just to the recipients of the organ or tissue, but to the entire family. We can save breadwinners. Reduce single-parent households,” Mokgethi appealed.
People who wish to donate organs should share their last wishes with their direct family members, as they need to give consent for organ donation at their time of death.
To donate an organ one can register with the organ donation foundation www.odf.org.za.
The Gauteng health department said the average waiting period for transplant ranges between one and two years or even more, depending on the specific organ required. Some patients wait up to five years as they have no living or non-living related donor and are waiting for a cadaver organ to become available.
“There is a shortage of organs in South Africa, due to low uptake of organ donation amongst the populace. Only 1.2 per million people donate organs in the country,” according to the Gauteng health department.
The Covid-19 pandemic has further compounded matters, as many elective surgeries had to be put on hold as resources were reassigned to fight the outbreak of the pandemic.
One person can save as much as eight lives with a single organ donation, and up to 50 people can be saved with a tissue donation.
Organs that are urgently needed in Gauteng include the heart, lungs, liver, kidneys and pancreas. Tissue needed urgently include corneas, skin and long bones.
IOL