AN organ transplantation expert of the Department of Health (DOH) is encouraging Pangasinenses to donate their organs after they pass away to give others a new lease on life.

Dr. Francisco Sarmiento, program manager of the Organ Donation and Transplantation Program of DOH, who presided over the Advocacy Forum on Organ Donation at Region 1 Medical Center, told media that the organs that can be harvested if a person is already brain-dead include the two kidneys, liver, pancreas, corneas of the eyes, lungs, heart, bones, and intestines.

The RIMC is the only DOH-accredited government-owned Treatment Center north of Manila which had so far performed 12 successful kidney transplants since 2012.

The DOH has now in its database some 25,000 persons in the country who signed up and registered as organ donors once declared as brain dead in the emergency room of a hospital where they were rushed after an accident.

Sarmiento, who is also the program manager of the Philippine Networking for Organ Sharing, said that a person who has been officially declared brain-dead is already dead as the only thing that makes his heart beat is the machine attached to him or her.

He said the organs of the deceased can be saved for transplant to at least nine persons. 

The 2017 report of  World Health Organization (WHO) registered some 230,000 Filipinos who died of end stage organ diseases owing to lack of kidney donations.

Sarmiento said there are two kinds of organ donors, the living and the deceased.

The living donor is usually the one who gives one of his or her kidneys to a renal patient diagnosed with chronic kidney disease and undergoing dialysis procedure.

With only one functioning kidney, the donor, as well as the kidney recipient can still live.

Sarmiento said only 10 percent of those who underwent kidney transplantation procedure received their organs from deceased persons. 

He said there are already eight deceased kidney donors available in contrast with more than 100 renal patients waiting for kidney transplantation throughout the country as the number of persons with chronic kidney disease is increasing.

The waiting time in the Philippines for a kidney patient to undergo transplantation is three to four years. He also cited one situation when a donor was available but the next patient waiting had no money to bankroll the cost of the procedure, the slot was given to the next patient waiting in line.

So far, the database of DOH has listed more than 25,000 donors willing to give any of their organs soon as they are officially declared dead, Sarmiento said, who pointed out that harvesting of organs from a brain-dead person who signed up as donor is allowed by law. Sale of organs is prohibited.  

Sarmiento also said the cost of transplantation ranges from P1 million to P1.5 million with the PhilHealth package only providing P600,000 as assistance.

In post-operation, he said, the cost of medicines ranges from P30,000 to P40,000 a month.  

(Leonardo Micua/ Nora Dominguez)     

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