Transplantation

15.11.2022

''Don't you want to give the gift of life to someone?''

Ankara City Hospital is the only facility where four types of transplants are carried out in our country. We also perform heart, liver, kidney, small bowel, cornea and bone marrow transplant surgeries.

What is organ tranplant?

To replace an organ which fails to perform in the body with a healthy organ or a portion of it from a living donor or a brain-dead deceased donor.

Which organs can we transplant?

Today, heart, lungs, liver, kidney, small bowel, pancreas are the organs can be transplanted. Patients suffering from tissue loss such as bone, tendon, ligament due to trauma or cancer can move comfortably again. Patients with damaged tissues are able to see again by corneal transplant while skin graft helps performing revision of burn scars and wound closure.

What is organ donation?

It is a procedure when a person decides to donate one of his/her organs or a portion of it to be transplanted for the benefit of other people after brain death before his/her health condition deteriorates.

Who can donate?

Healthy individuals who turn 18 years old and have the ability to tell the difference between right and wrong can donate their organs.

How can I donate and where?

Public and university hospitals carry out this procedure in our country. In addition, it is sufficient for individuals to fill and sign the organ donation card in the presence of two witnesses in Provincial Health Directorate, in Police Departments (during the delivery of driver's license), organ transplant centers and in organizations who concern about donation such as foundations, voluntary associations etc. It is necessary for individuals who donate to inform their families.

Why organ donation is so important?

It must be remembered that donation from a living donor helps only treatment of some diseases (kidney, liver) However, thousands of patients wait for organs which cannot be transplanted from living donors such as heart and lungs and their only chance is organ donation.

Does organ donation affect the composition of the corpse of the individual?

The removal of the organ from a deceased donor is indistinguishable from any other surgery and performed with great care and attention. After the removal of the organs, the surgical site is aesthetically stitched by making the best of it not to harm the body in any way possible. Those bodies are 'sacred' for those physicians who know the value of it and deserve all kind of respect.

The religious aspect of organ donation

Organ donation is not religiously forbidden. Most of the major world religions approve organ donation and support it. Presidency of The Religious Affairs, High Board of Religious Affairs declared that organ donation was permissible referring to the decision dated 3.3.1980 and numbered 396/13 on this subject.

As the following:

1. State of necessity is required which means that it must be confirmed that there is not any alternative way to save the life of a patient or a vital organ by specialists who are trustworthy based on their professional qualification and their probity.

2. Doctor's judgment about this method to be applied for treatment is required.

3. The individual who the removal of tissue and organ to be performed on must be confirmed dead during the process.

4. The individual who the removal of tissue and organ to be performed on must give consent while he/she is healty or taking the consent of his relatives when he/she is alive without the existence of a counter statement.

5. No fee to be asked in return for tissue and organ removal

6. Patient to be treated must make a statement about his/her consent to the transplantation to be performed on himself/herself. In the same decision, it is stated that ''the individual who you donate your organ is responsible for all the good and 

evil acts he/she performs himself/herself.'' In The Holy Quran dictates that ''whoever saves one, his good deed shall be rewarded as if he saves the entire mankind.'' (Surah Al-Ma'idah, verse 32)

''Be the life of the expectants.''