Organ donation affected by Covid-19 pandemic

AS South Africa commemorates National Organ Donor Awareness Month in August, the Covid-19 pandemic has worsened an already declining number of life-saving organ donations.

There has been a sharp decline in organ donations recently said Mount Edgecombe resident, Sean Samujh who is an organ transplant recipient and KwaZulu-Natal chairperson of the South African Transplant Sports Association (SATSA).

“In the early 2000s we were receiving around 14 kidney donations per year in KwaZulu-Natal. Now, if we get two to three a year, we are lucky. There are a few things that have affected this, including people’s perception and religious beliefs. Being a donor doesn’t mean that all your organs will be taken. You can decide if you want to be a donor for your corneas only, for example,” he said. 

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SATSA aims to keep organ recipients healthy by promoting sport and to prevent organ failure by educating the community about health issues. Transplant Games Association of South Africa (TGASA) was established in April 1994 by a small group of organ-transplantees, who felt the need for an organisation that would promote an active lifestyle and an involvement in various sporting activities. The World Transplant Games (WTG) is held every two years and South Africa has been participating since 1993.

“Our organisation is two fold. Firstly, we aim to keep people who have had organ transplants active. Secondly, we honour our donors. Yes, we represent South Africa in the WTG, but more so, we represent our donors. We want to thank them and their families. They have given us life. Without organ donors, I would not be sitting here today, My children would have grown up without a father,” he said.

Sumujh had a kidney transplant in 2015, after three years of dialysis treatment when he had kidney failure in 2011. He vividly recalls how it was 11am on 20 January, 2015 when he received the life saving call that doctors had found a kidney match from a cadaver donor.

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Cindy Goldie, a heart and lung coordinator for the Organ Donor Foundation (ODF), said the pandemic had had a great impact on ODF’s ‘donate your hip’ campaign, aimed at patients receiving hip replacement surgery.

“We cannot consider a Covid-19 patient for donation. Elective surgery is on hold in many hospitals so our ‘donate your hip’ program is just about stopped. That bone is needed for other orthopaedic and neurosurgery. Staffing at hospitals also mean the referral of a death for tissue donation is also not happening,” she said.

To sign up to be an organ donor, visit the ODF website via www.odf.org.za. For more information about SATSA, visit the website via: transplantsports.org.za.

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At the time of going to press, the contents of this feature mirrored South Africa’s lockdown regulations.

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