Azernews.Az

By Sabina Idayatova

Azerbaijan has necessary conditions to carry out heart transplant surgery, Deputy Health Minister Elsever Aghayev told journalists at the press conference on Sept. 27.

"Successful transplantation of organs has been held in several clinics of Azerbaijan," he noted.

Aghayev said that the biggest problem of heart transplantation both in the country and in the world is a shortage of donors.

"Only five percent of people pending heart transplant surgeries can find a donor in the world," Aghayev said. "Donors with brain death documentation are needed for these operations, as only after that donor's biological life ends. However, it is often not accepted by the families of these patients."

He further said that the main way to solve the problem is to transplant artificial heart. "Such kind of operations are conducted at leading transplant centers in the world."

A successful operation on artificial heart transplant was held at the Central Clinical Hospital of Azerbaijan earlier this year. The patient lives with an artificial heart already for eight months.

Azerbaijan has successfully carried out organ transplants in recent years.

According to Aghayev, the number of kidney and liver transplants increases in health care facilities.

Some 41 people were operated on kidney transplants and 12 on liver transplants last year. "Some 24 patients were operated on kidney transplants and nine on liver transplant during the first half of 2013."

Aghayev further said that Azerbaijan is preparing to conduct operations on a bone marrow transplantation operation.

Touching upon the situation with diabetes Aghayev said there is a significant decrease in mortality among these patients in Azerbaijan.

"Today, a large group of patients in Azerbaijan are provided free medicines," he said.

"Furthermore, free medicines of 99 types are given to the patients who are included in the various preferential groups (diabetics, invalids of the first and second groups, invalids of Karabakh and the Great Patriotic War, etc.)," he said.

According to Aghayev, 11 programs adopted on the priority areas of health care are successfully implemented since 2005.

"The work on identification of diabetic patients has been improved, and the number of reported cases has increased more than 3.6 times to 180,000 people," Aghayev said.

Aghayev also noted the improvement with detection of cancer patients, which significantly cut the death rate among them. Patients in this group receive free medicine from the government.

Responding to a question about personnel reform in the health system, Aghayev said one of the main directions of development of public health in accordance with world standards are the reforms in medical education and personnel.

"In recent years, the ministry has taken exceptional measures in this sphere," he underscored. "Azerbaijan has applied certification of medical workers which is adopted in developed countries, since January 2011. The certification is carried out to provide quality health services, to improve professional level and professional competence of persons engaged in medical practice or pharmaceutical activity. More than 10,000 physicians passed the certification so far."