Dix­ie-Ann Dick­son

Na­tion­als need to de­vel­op a cul­ture of or­gan do­na­tion for the de­vel­op­ment of trans­plant surgery in this coun­try. This was the plea yes­ter­day from Min­is­ter of Health Dr Fuad Khan, who said there was a lack of in­ter­est by cit­i­zens in do­nat­ing their or­gans. Khan was speak­ing at Nab­bie's Train­ing Cen­tre, Curepe, dur­ing the 24th an­nu­al thanks­giv­ing ser­vice for kid­ney trans­plant sur­vivor, Nab­bie Khan. Nab­bie, who re­ceived the first re­nal trans­plant in the coun­try, is now the longest liv­ing na­tion­al who has un­der­gone the surgery.

The min­is­ter said even though there was now an es­tab­lished Na­tion­al Or­gan Trans­plant Unit, or­gan trans­plan­ta­tion had come a long way, but still need­ed fur­ther de­vel­op­ment. He said back in the era when Nab­bie had his trans­plant, kid­ney dis­eases of­ten re­sult­ed in death, and dial­y­sis, which is used in some cas­es in­stead of surgery, was in its in­fan­cy. Khan said he would seek the as­sis­tance of Le­gal Af­fairs Min­is­ter Prakash Ra­mad­har in draft­ing leg­is­la­tion to help move or­gan trans­plan­ta­tion for­ward. "We signed an agree­ment with the Barcelona Trans­plan­ta­tion In­sti­tute to have young doc­tors trained in har­vest­ing or­gan do­na­tion and or­gan trans­plant."

Point­ing to Nab­bie's suc­cess sto­ry, Khan is en­cour­ag­ing oth­er cit­i­zens to com­mit to do­nat­ing their or­gans. Luck­i­ly for Nab­bie, his sis­ter Zabi­da Ho­sein, who is still alive, do­nat­ed one of her kid­neys to save her broth­er's life. Ho­sein, who is very close to her broth­er, said she did not give it a sec­ond thought when she found out her blood type was a per­fect match to her broth­er's. "I am very glad I did be­cause we could cel­e­brate 24 years of good health and strength af­ter his op­er­a­tion on Jan­u­ary 28, 1988. It was an easy de­ci­sion to make."

Re­gard­ing the is­sue of good health, the min­is­ter said healthy eat­ing must go hand-in-hand with or­gan do­na­tion. He said most of the dis­eases and com­pli­ca­tions could be pre­vent­ed by a good, healthy di­et: low sug­ar and salt in­take. "Our lifestyle and the way we eat pre­dis­pose us to all types of dis­eases, name­ly, di­a­betes, high blood pres­sure and heart fail­ure," the min­is­ter said.

Khan al­so not­ed that 55 per cent of peo­ple in T&T are con­sid­ered over­weight and obese. Child­hood obe­si­ty is on the rise with 25 to 30 per cent of chil­dren over­weight, and in the co­hort 15 and over, it is es­ti­mat­ed that 15 per cent are over­weight. Mean­while, Dr Em­manuel Ho­sein, a for­mer health min­is­ter and one of the doc­tors in­stru­men­tal in Nab­bie's kid­ney trans­plant, said the op­er­at­ing team took a chance with Nab­bie's op­er­a­tion. Ac­cord­ing to Dr Ho­sein, back then the tech­nol­o­gy wasn't good, med­ica­tion was an is­sue and the staff wasn't quite ex­pe­ri­enced. Ho­sein called on cit­i­zens to take the op­por­tu­ni­ty to con­tribute to sav­ing a life through or­gan do­na­tion.