Moving towards implementation of a clinical ethics consultation program in Egyptian liver transplant units

Abstract

Correspondence: AH El-Elemi Forensic Medicine and Clinical Toxicology Department, Suez Canal University, 58-60 Tarek Ebn Zeyad, ismailia, Egypt Tel +2 012 3705451 Fax +2 064 3209448 Email azza.el.elemi@utoronto.ca Abstract: The high prevalence of chronic liver disease in Egypt has led to increasing numbers of patients with end-stage liver disease in need of liver transplantation. To date, cadaveric liver transplantation is not legal in Egypt. However, introducing living-donor liver transplantation seems appropriate for patients who need transplantation. There are no clinical bioethicists in the Egyptian healthcare system. The idea of implementing an ethics consultation program has evolved as a response to complicated legal, ethical, and social dilemmas that accompany the transplantation process, especially in Egypt where organs are obtained by advertising without consideration of an acceptable level of risk to donors or recipients. Recommendations need to be made to start to implement bioethics consultation in liver transplantation units. To achieve this goal there is a need to develop training standards, credentials, and certification before embarking on clinical consultation to ensure good ethics practice in Egypt.