FROM PAGE 14

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 the highest priority to 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 Habibur Rahman Dulal, at BSMMU.

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

The physicians took the kidneys from 20-year-old Sara, 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 the related law was amended in 2018 allowing collection of organs from the clinically dead with consent from relatives.