Brain-dead donor in Abu Dhabi saves Saudi child's life

Arab News

9 hours ago

RIYADH: In a medical breakthrough, King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Centre in Riyadh successfully transplanted a heart into a 7-year-old Saudi child using an organ airlifted from a brain-dead donor in Abu Dhabi.
'This marks another successful case of advanced regional cooperation in organ transplantation,' the hospital said in a statement.
'The life-saving procedure was completed following donor family consent and all regulatory approvals and after coordinating between the Saudi Center for Organ Transplantation and the UAE's National Program for Donation and Transplantation of Human Organs and Tissue.'
The operation involved precise medical and logistical coordination, starting with the organ extraction, followed by air transportation to Riyadh, and concluding with the preparation of operating theaters in record time.
The transplant was performed within a critically time-sensitive window, ultimately saving the life of a child who had no other treatment options available, the hospital said.
The patient, named Faisal, was suffering from advanced heart failure, having been born with a complex congenital defect. After exhausting all available treatment options — including medications, respiratory support, and pacemaker implantation — without any significant improvement, the child was placed on the urgent transplant list.
Dr. Hani Al-Sergani, executive director of the Heart Centre of Excellence at KFSHRC told Arab News: 'Behind every transplant are two families — one making a profound act of generosity, and another receiving a renewed chance at life. What makes this case remarkable is the seamless cross-border coordination that ensured a donated heart reached a child in critical need within hours.
'It reflects the maturity of Gulf healthcare collaboration and strengthens our confidence that regional partnerships will continue to expand the possibilities of saving lives,' added Al-Sergani.
Ahmad Jaafari, donor affairs and organ allocation director at the Saudi Center for Organ Transplantation, said: 'The donor's data was received and analyzed. The information was then shared with the KFSHRC as the patient, Faisal, was listed with high priority status. Once the case was accepted, coordination took place with the medical ethics center at the Ministry of Health to arrange for a specialized medical team and a private aircraft to travel to the UAE for the heart retrieval. The organ was transported as quickly as possible to perform the transplant at the KFSHRC.'
Dr. Felix Wang Tsai, pediatric cardiology surgery consultant at KFSHRC, said: 'When the patient came to our hospital he was quite sick. His only chance for survival was (a) heart transplant and fortunately we were able to find a donor from Abu Dhabi, and brought the organ to perform (the) transplant successfully, very nicely and very quickly.
'We only do about 10-15 transplants a year, so it's very important we get more donors here in Saudi Arabia so we can help patients like Faisal,' he added.
Time is a critical factor in heart transplant operations. According to medical standards, the period between removing the heart from the donor and transplanting it into the patient must not exceed five hours to ensure transplant success.
This time constraint creates significant logistical challenges in addition to the complex medical procedures, particularly when the brain-dead donor is located overseas, said the hospital in its statement, adding that, in such circumstances, every minute of delay becomes crucial to the operation's success.
The heart transplant was more than just a medical procedure — it was the result of ongoing coordination between medical teams in the Kingdom and the UAE through humanitarian cooperation aimed at saving critical cases, the hospital added.
This achievement reflects KFSHRC's ability to overcome complex challenges and leverage its capabilities in partnership with relevant authorities to deliver specialized care that brings hope back to patients and their families, it said.
The KFSHRC Heart Centre is recognized as one of the world's leading cardiac centers, having achieved exceptional milestones including the world's first fully robotic heart transplant and robotic artificial heart pump implantation without chest incision. These unprecedented medical breakthroughs demonstrate the Kingdom's leadership in complex cardiac surgery.
KFSHRC has been ranked first in the Middle East and North Africa and 15th globally in the list of the world's top 250 Academic Medical Centers for the second consecutive year, and included in the World's Best Smart Hospitals list for 2025 by Newsweek magazine.