Ammon News - The Ministry of Health, in cooperation with various healthcare sectors, is preparing a new national organ donation and transplantation protocol aimed at unifying procedures and connecting donors with patients in need of transplants, hospitals, and medical teams. The initiative seeks to help narrow the gap between the number of patients on waiting lists and the availability of suitable organs.

Minister of Health Dr. Ibrahim Bdour said the protocol is a national project involving all healthcare sectors, noting that Jordan has around 4,900 kidney failure patients, in addition to patients requiring liver and other organ transplants.

He explained that expanding transplant operations could ease the health burden on both patients and healthcare institutions, adding that living donors can donate under specific medical conditions and regulations, including the donation of one kidney or part of the liver in eligible cases.

The protocol is expected to provide a faster and more organized mechanism for handling urgent transplant cases by defining donation procedures, compatibility matching, priority criteria, and coordination among hospitals and medical teams.

The protocol’s development coincides with a Cabinet decision on Sunday to add an organ donor registration service to the Sanad application. According to the app’s director, Mohammad Albattikhi, more than 2,300 people registered within less than a day.

Electronic registration is considered an important step toward expanding the donor pool. However, the main challenge remains integrating this data into a comprehensive national system linking public hospitals, the Royal Medical Services, university hospitals, and private-sector facilities with donor databases and transplant waiting lists.

A national committee comprising the Ministry of Health and relevant stakeholders is working on the protocol to regulate the donor-recipient process, matching mechanisms, priority criteria, and coordination among institutions and medical teams.