Laura Bashraheel Saudi Gazette JEDDAH — Despite advancements in medicine and technology, the demand for organs drastically outstrips the number of organ donors in the Kingdom and social media websites are becoming a tool to promote and raise awareness about humanitarian causes. Recently, a hashtag was created in order to urge more people to donate their organs. Started in Arabic, the hashtage translates to “I announce donating my organs after my death”, and urges people to fill out organ donation cards. The organ donation card is a proof that someone has agreed to donate his/her organs after death and it can be found online through Saudi Center for Organ Transplantation's (SCOT) website:http://www.scot.org.sa/. The hashtag, that has only been active for a few days, has received wide support with people tweeting on how donating organs is a good deed that will be rewarded by God. Also, users hare spreading awareness on the importance of organ donation by posting links to SCOT and the organ donation card. Despite fatwas from Islamic scholars allowing organ donations, some people believe it's not fair to remove the organs of their brain-dead relatives. In order to raise awareness, the Saudi Council of Senior Scholars issued a fatwa in 1982 declaring organ donations of living or dead persons permissible. Part of the problem involves a common misconception that brain death is reversible. Unlike a coma, there is virtually universal consensus among the medical community that a human body can be kept alive artificially even when a person is clinically dead. According to medical statistics, there is a wide gap between the numbers of organ failure patients and the number of possible organ donors whether alive, clinically dead or dead in general. Also, statistics from SCOT show that the number of organs donated from clinically dead patients has not exceeded 105 cases in the last five years. The Kingdom's organ donation rate of three cases per million people, is considered a world low. Mai Al-Helabi, a 29-year-old banker, singed an organ donation consent few years ago at a governmental hospital, to donate her organs in case of clinical death. “The idea of saving someone's life through organ transplantation is just one of the miracles of medicine but this could only happen if someone filled in the organ donation card,” she said. Al-Helabi filled out a form where she agreed to donate all the organs asked, which are Cornea, liver, kidney, heart, pancreas and lungs. Sarah Aziz, a 32-year-old marketer also has an organ donation card and she believes that the idea of saving lives is overwhelming. “I have a friends who suffered from a kidney failure almost all her life. She finally received a kidney transplant two years ago from a man who was clinically dead. She still talks to his family every now and then because they agreed to donate his kidney,” Aziz explained. Aziz said she used to go to the hospital with her friend and she witnessed countless people who were on the waiting list to receive kidney transplants. Many had been waiting for years. “The idea of the hashtag is great but is that enough for awareness? People need to go to hospitals and see how others are suffering,” she added.
