UAE’s first cadaveric organ transplant was performed in April 2013 on a 23-year-old Somali woman with kidney failure. The landmark surgery was carried out at the Shaikh Khalifa Medical City (SKMC), the only authorised organ transplantation centre in the UAE. This signals the start of vital organ transplantation from deceased donors, three years after the green light was given by the UAE Health Council. In May 2010, then health minister Haneef Hasan Ali signed off the bylaws governing the 1993 Federal Law on Organ Transplantation. The annexure to the law provided the definition that would make it legal for surgeons to harvest the organ from the “brain dead” patient (one whose brain stem is dead), as well as, the guidelines for multi-organ donation including kidney, liver, lung, pancreas and heart.

The deceased donor was from Saudi Arabia who died in a traffic accident and whose family decided to donate his organs for needy recipients. Tests showed that Latifa Sai’ed, who was on dialysis for the past 16 years, was a near perfect match. Thus, arrangements were made to bring the kidney from Saudi to the UAE by jet.

Since 2007, SKMC has carried out 75 kidney transplants from live donors. They include seven children with the youngest being four years old. The oldest recipient was 64 years old.

Currently, only transplants from related live donors are performed in the UAE. The only designated centre for such procedures is the Shaikh Khalifa Medical City in Abu Dhabi, which has performed more than 60 kidney transplants over the last three years.