Every year thousands of people’s lives are saved because of organ transplants. Certainly the people whose lives are saved are grateful to their organ donors for the gift of life. In yesterdays New Times Letters page, Dr. Innocent Nyaruhirira, head of King Faisal Hospital and former health minister, talked about his experience in a recent cornea surgery he was involved in, in collaboration with surgeons from the US and the Rwanda Defence Force. He expressed his satisfaction in providing the gift of sight to Rwandans who had lost it. The corneas they used in the eye operations were donated by people in the US who, before they died, wanted to leave a legacy behind; a legacy that transformed people’s lives. The cornea is the transparent front part of the eye that covers the iris, pupil and anterior chamber. Together with the lens, the cornea is responsible for the eyes ability to refract light, hence sight. According to the good doctor, these people who chose to allow doctors to use their organs after death were selflessly generous, especially because many of these donors most likely had terminal illnesses. Organ transplantation is still strange to many of us in Rwanda. Many people in Africa out of ignorance have opposed the whole organ transplant business claiming that one could end up receiving foreign genes, diseases or traits from the original donor. I would like to take the opportunity to request that Dr. Nyaruhirira write another article assuring citizens that only healthy organs and tissues are transplanted and then, maybe, expound more on the surgical procedure of organ transplantation and what it entails . Providing information about donation and transplantation to the general public will improve organ and tissue procurement efforts in the country. Africans fear ‘death’ and the idea of walking around with a dead man’s eye might sound haunting to some people. The donation of organs should respect the will of donors and be conducted voluntarily. Cases of organ trading have been reported before in Africa and thus there should be a law set on organ donation. On quoting the doctor, in his letter he said that “our country is making great strides in organ donation, including the drafting of the “Organ Donation” law to be promulgated by H.E. President Kagame, which protects donors and patients in the event of organ donation.” For example, in Japan it is illegal for children to donate their organs to grown ups. Therefore they have to travel to the United States to have the transplant. Encouraging people to accept to be donors is a hard task. I asked several people in the office whether they could volunteers a cornea or kidney. One colleague asked “what happens when your kidney fails and has to now look for another one since, out of generosity I gave one has to a loved one?” Some swore that they could only donate an organ to their own children while others said that it was a tough world out there and everyone was on their own. The debate became heated but the bottom line, and everyone agreed on this was that those who ‘did’ donate an organ were brave and heroic. I sincerely hope that we, Rwandans, who fought so heroically to liberate our motherland will continue the legacy of heroism by being able to donate an organ when the need arises. karuthum@gmail.com
