PM Hasina hails Bangladesh’s progress in medical science

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Monday said that doctors in Bangladesh are now capable of performing critical operations, including kidney transplant as the country has advanced in healthcare.

"Bangladesh has made a huge progress in medical treatment. Doctors are now capable of carrying out many critical operations, including kidney transplant," she said.

The prime minister said this when a delegation of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU) led by its vice-Chancellor Prof Dr Sharafuddin Ahmed paid a courtesy call on her at the latter's official residence Ganabhaban.

PM's Deputy Press Secretary KM Shakhawat Moon briefed reporters after the meeting.

Hasina said her government has reached healthcare services to every doorstep following the footsteps of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

She said her government has given topmost priority in extending healthcare services to the people.

The physicians who have recently performed the first successful transplantation of organs from brain-dead patient Sara Islam were present at the meeting along with Sara’s mother. Also present were Shamima Akhter and Shabnam Sultana, who successfully received the kidneys donated by Sara.

The successful kidney transplantation was done on January 19 by a team of physicians led by Prof Dr Habibur Rahman Dulal at BSMMU hospital.

It was the first cadaveric kidney transplant performed in the country.

They took the kidneys from Sara Islam, a 20-year-old patient at the intensive care unit who was declared clinically dead in the afternoon of January 18, after her mother gave her consent for the operation.

Kidney transplantation from living donors began in the country in 1982. But taking a kidney from a clinically dead patient was legally restricted until it was amended in 2018 allowing collection of organs from the clinically dead with consent from relatives.