National Conference on Organ Donation and Transplantation today

The National Conference on Organ Donation and Transplantation will be held today from 8.30 a.m. to 4.30 p.m. at the Main Auditorium of the Sri Lanka Foundation Institute.

Chronic kidney disease and end-stage renal failure is a significant health problem in Sri Lanka. Chronic haemodialysis without a kidney transplant is a highly expensive facility and is not available to all patients in Sri Lanka. The predominant practice of kidney transplantation in Sri Lanka is conducted by means of live donor kidney transplantation. However, there is a shortage of organs in Sri Lanka which causes a major problem. Therefore a significant number of patients succumb to disease due to a lack of organs. Sri Lanka is the leading nation in the world for cornea donation and provides corneas to 54 countries. Thus deceased donor organ donation from brain dead donors is a possibility in Sri Lanka. However, there is no established deceased donor organ donation service in Sri Lanka. The establishment of such a service may help save thousands of lives.

It is a timely need to conduct an educational campaign for medical and nursing staff of intensive care units in the country. Such a program would increase the awareness of health staff, which in turn will result in the availability of a large number of deceased donor organs to save dying patients.

Speakers and their subjects at the conference include ‘The International Transplant Community’ by Prof. Richard Allen; ‘Current Status of Transplantation and Potential for Sri Lanka’ by Dr. Ruwan Dissanayake, ‘Intersections between Intensive Care Services and the Transplant Sector’ by A/s Prof. Kate Wyburn, ‘What is Brain Death and How do I Diagnose?’ by Dr. Nudrat Rashid, ‘Brain Death Confirmation Testing in Sri Lanka’ by Dr. Priyani Panduwawela, ‘Management of the Brain Dead Donor’ by Dr. Nudrat Rashid, ‘Behind the Scenes – The Transplant Teams’ by Prof. Henry Pleass, ‘Medico-legal Procedures and Issues in Transplantation’ by Dr. Ajith Thennakoon, ‘The Organ Donation Conversation and Family Consent’ by Dr. Nudrat Rashid, ‘Techniques of Organ Retrieval and Organ Preservation’ by Prof. Henry Pleass and ‘Organ Allocation’ by A/s Prof Kate Wyburn.