CAIRO – 3 August 2018: MP Sherin Farrag announced submitting an urgent information request to the Cabinet, condemning the removal of a deceased person’s corneas in Al-Kasr Al-Ainy Hospital, without his or his family’s prior consent.
Mohamed Abdel Tawab is a citizen who died at the hospital due to a drop in blood pressure as he was lying in the Intensive Care Unit awaiting a cardiac catheterization operation. His family found his eyes bleeding and then knew that his corneas were missing from his body, and subsequently filed a complaint at the police department.
Farrag said that the Egyptian constitution stipulates that all citizens have the right to donate their body organs during their life following their approval or after their death by a written testament. She said that the hospital’s actions were subsequently illegal and that the perpetrators broke the law.
She also accused the hospital of disrespecting the body of a deceased person, as article No. 6 of the constitution stipulates that assaulting the human body or disfiguring it is a punishable crime. In addition, it is prohibited to carry out a medical or scientific experiment on someone without his written agreement, she added.
However, Dean of Al-Kasr Al-Ainy Medical School Fathy Khodeir earlier told “Al-Ashera Masaan” TV show that only the posterior surface of the corneas were removed which is a measure allowed by a law issued in 2003. The law states that cornea banks can obtain corneas from the following sources:
1) Corneas of individuals who give prior documented permission.
2) Corneas of individuals who die in accidents and whose bodies are subject to autopsy by prosecution.
3) Corneas of individuals who die in hospitals and medical institutions licensed to establish cornea banks under the supervision of three senior doctors.
In an interview with “Bel Waraka Wal Qalam” (By Paper and Pen) program on TEN, Magdy Morshed, a member of the Parliament’s Health Committee supported Khodeir’s statement, saying that corneas can be obtained from a dead person in licensed hospitals without prior permission of his parents.
He added that corneas are a tissue not an organ, and therefore, cornea transplantation is seen by the current law similar to blood transfusion.
Health official Abdel Hamid Abaza, head of the organs transplantation law committee, said that the law criminalizes taking out the body’s organs, but this law does not include the cornea.
He added that both eye banks of Cairo and Ain Shams universities were closed due to the scarcity of donated corneas, and importing corneas costs the citizens and the state a huge amount of money.
In an interview with Mohamed Al-Gheity on LTC TV, Ahmed Abdel Tawab, the victim’s brother said he formally accused the hospital of deliberately killing Mohamed to obtain his cornea. In another interview, he said that his brother was kept in the hospital for a week, during which he had undergone medical tests for the hospital to make sure that his corneas can be transplanted to the recipient.
Dar al-Iftaa, a government institution established to represent Islam in Egypt, issued a fatwa (Islamic opinion) in 2015, allowing those who need corneas for their eyes to obtain corneas from dead people. However, according to the fatwa, a prior agreement has to be obtained from the donor before death or from the donor’s heirs after the donor’s death. In addition, the donor has to be confirmed dead, and surgeons have to be almost sure that the transplantation operation will be conducted successfully.
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