We need facilities to store organs for transplantations in Ghana - Mintah Akandoh

The Ranking Member on Health in Parliament, Kwabena Mintah Akandoh is calling for a comprehensive construction of facilities and infrastructure that support and can store donated organs by donors in the country.

The Member of Parliament for Juaboso, Mintah Akandoh, who was speaking to Daniel Oduro on this week’s edition of The Lowdown on GhanaWeb TV, opined that it is right to seek facilities that will aid the smooth process of organ donation and transplantation in Ghana.

Mintah Akandoh was speaking on the premise of Ghana making sure it has systems properly in place to ensure safe organ donation and transplantation in the country.

He also explained that Ghana does not even have a sperm bank to store sperm donations, how much more other organs.

“We must even be talking about the infrastructure, okay? Sperm donation; how many days, how many weeks can we store it? Who is there to play that oversight role? These are all great areas,” he said.

Akandoh also added that it would be right to have a registry set up in Ghana for individuals to assent to donating their organs after death because there are several persons who die and yet have viable organs that can be used to save the lives of others.

“We must also get to a point where we have a registry for the nation where people can also go and willingly register that when I pass or die and there are any organs that can save others, you can use those organs to do so,” he said.

He added, “For example, if somebody is engaged in an accident, some of the organs may be viable and so, we can use those organs to save other lives.”

Click here to start the nomination process for the 2023 GhanaWeb Excellence Awards

Ghana’s leading digital news platform, GhanaWeb, in conjunction with the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital, is embarking on an aggressive campaign that is geared towards ensuring that parliament passes comprehensive legislation to guide organ harvesting, organ donation, and organ transplantation in the country.





BAJ/OGB