Organ donation in Jordan... Fears, legislation and awareness campaigns

Amman -

The Indian film "Anuraag" - which was produced in 1972 - tells the story of a blind girl who works in sculpture, and gets to know a young boy with cancer. The first is in her life - seeing what is around her and what she has accomplished.

This humanistic scenario is not limited to films only. In the Jordanian capital, Amman, the young man Yazan Al-Shaibi - who died in a traffic accident - wrote a story whose meanings exceeded the imagination of the famous Indian film writer, and one of its characters was the young journalist Moamen Abu Artima, who lives with Yazan's cornea after his death.

Abu Artemah told Al-Jazeera Net that what happened with him put an end to his suffering, restored hope to his soul, and "the return of hope" - as he described it - was not limited to him only, as Yazan recommended that his organs be donated after death to 5 other people, and here is his heart beating gently today. In the chest of a young man, his kidneys revived the bodies of two girls who had been exhausted by the disease, while his liver renewed life for a man who suffered from complications of cirrhosis, and light returned to a child who had never seen the light.

Journalist Moamen Abu Artima, one of the beneficiaries of corneal transplantation (Al-Jazeera)

Establishing a culture of organ donation

In an exclusive interview with Al-Jazeera Net, the head of the Jordanian Society for the Encouragement of Organ Donation, Prince Raad bin Zaid, says that the society "worked to establish a culture of organ donation, and this topic was included in the curricula of the tenth grade," noting that "the transplantation process is free, as it is borne by the state, as A relative of an organ donor is given free health insurance.

Prince Raad hopes that a specialized national center will be established at the level of the Kingdom, with the aim of coordinating organ donation and transplantation, noting that the center has lists of those recommending donation and others for those in need of these organs, and coordination and time is used to take organs and transplant them by qualified doctors.

He explains that the presence of a directorate in the Ministry of Health for organ transplantation does not cover all parts of the Kingdom due to the absence of the necessary coordination, which requires the existence of an integrated national center linking all parties to the work, indicating that the Jordanian people are generous, and that there are many steps and activities that the association is based on in this regard.

What is organ donation after death?

And when is it?

According to Dr. Muhammad Al-Thunaibat, a specialist in diseases, kidney transplantation, and blood pressure, any other organ can be taken from a clinically dead donor, such as the heart, lungs, corneas, and even tissues that benefit from it, such as skin and bone.

Al-Thunaibat told Al-Jazeera Net that the organs are taken after the brain death of the donor, or what is known as clinical death, which is a medical diagnosis based on clinical examination, the presence of an irreversible coma, apnea, and the absence of nerve reflexes.

The first organ transplant in Jordan

In 1972, the first documented successful organ (kidney) transplant in the Arab world was performed in Jordan, and it was for a Jordanian soldier.

The operation was performed by a medical team including Dr. Dawood Hanania, Dr. Tariq Al-Suhaimat and Dr. Saeed Al-Karmi.

Statistics of organ donors in Jordan

The secretary of the Jordanian Society for the Promotion of Organ Donation, Rania Jabr, tells Al-Jazeera Net that there are more than 50,000 recommendation cards for organ donation registered with the Society and with the Directorate of the Jordanian Center for Organ Transplantation located in the Ministry of Health.

Anyone in Jordan can sign the donation card, but it is not legally binding on the family of the deceased, because it is not documented by a notary public, and they often retract it.

Therefore, the authorities working to spread this culture recommend that the donor inform his relatives of his will or that this donation be documented through legal paper or with a lawyer.

And there are initiatives, such as the "From_Beyond_Life" initiative launched by the students of the University of Jordan to raise awareness of the importance of donation, for the benefit of patients who need organ transplantation.

In 2013, Jordan entered the Guinness Book of World Records by registering the highest number of people recommending the donation of their corneas. The "From My Eyes is Life" campaign managed to collect 3,540 donors, breaking the world's highest number (2,262) that was recorded in the United States of America.

Jordanian society's impressions of organ donation

Young Suhaib (37 years old), one of those who signed the donation document, says that his motive for this is to improve the lives of people who have been tired of illness and their lives are hard, and it is a matter of paid charity.

As for Ahmed (17 years old), he says that the issue is somewhat vague, which leads to hesitation in taking this step, especially with regard to his lack of knowledge whether the deceased's body will be subjected to mutilation, and what is the detailed Sharia opinion on that.

A local study conducted by Dr. Saleh Hammad in 2017 showed that Jordanian society did not accept the idea of ​​organ donation after brain death, and the most prominent reasons for refusing to donate based on another study by Dr. Fayez Abdel Razzaq and others in 2020 were misconceptions about the deformation of the dead person’s body if parts of it were taken. Fear of inaccurate diagnosis of a person being brain dead, in addition to fears of the absence of justice and the entry of nepotism (connections) in granting beneficiaries.

Dr. Muhammad Al-Thunaibat believes that awareness of the importance of organ donation and its impact on saving thousands of patients must be raised, as it is one of the noble meanings of humanity that the Islamic religion urges, in addition to making efforts to establish a national center specialized in organ donation.

The young man Yazan al-Shaibi, whose organs were transferred after his death to the bodies of 6 people (Al-Jazeera)

Governing laws and regulations.. and obstacles

In 1977, the law on the use of human body organs was issued, and it was amended several times. It is based on Islamic jurisprudence legislation, as Article 3 stipulates that organ transplant operations must be carried out by adhering to the fatwas issued by the Fatwa Council.

And regarding the diagnosis of brain death that allows the transfer of organs, the law stipulates in Article 9 the requirement that there be 3 doctors in addition to a forensic doctor assigned by the minister, to determine together and unanimously the death, and it is stipulated that the doctor who rescued the case not be among them.

Rania Jabr says that the most prominent obstacles to organ donation in Jordan are legislative matters that do not oblige the implementation of the organ donor's recommendation after his death, which greatly reduces the number of actual donation operations.

And remember that there are efforts being made to amend legislation in cooperation with the House of Representatives and Senate, in order to establish a national center for organ transplantation that brings together all the public and private medical sectors, to facilitate and increase cases of organ donation and to force hospitals to report cases of brain death.

Organ donation has been integrated into the curriculum in Jordan (Al-Jazeera)

legitimate opinion

The Secretary-General of the Jordanian Ifta Department, Dr. Ahmed Al-Hasanat, says that there are conditions related to the permission to donate organs after death, which is that the deceased authorizes this thing before his death or his heirs authorize it, and this is what the Jordanian Ifta Council approves regarding the permissibility of donating the cornea of ​​the eye.

And he mentions the good deeds - in his speech to Al-Jazeera Net - that the transfer of organs from the dead to the living is in the preservation of the soul that is required by Sharia, and honoring the donor by obtaining the reward, and honoring the one who was donated to him by restoring his health or sight, for example.

He enumerates the good deeds, the rules of the Shari’ah for benefiting from the donation, as follows: