Polish organ donations low due to public resistance

A number of patients waiting for life-saving organ transplants continue to die in Poland due to a shortage of donors, medical practitioners alarmed at the Warsaw event, initiated by the Clinical Hospital of the Child Jesus and the Medicine Development Center Foundation.

As data released by the Poltransplant Polish Transplant Coordinating Center reveal, 1,619 people underwent organ replacement procedures in 2014.

Some 1,120 kidneys were retrieved from deceased donors, while 55 were obtained from living donors.

Thirty-seven patients received new pancreas, 366 got a liver, 76 a heart, 19 a lung, and one underwent an upper-limb transplant.

Professor Artur Kwiatkowski, from the Clinical Hospital of the Child Jesus, believes changing public awareness about donation and transplants is key to countering the shortage of available organs.

Under Polish law, organs may be retrieved from the deceased by default unless the individual had wished otherwise before his or her death.

In practice, however, if at least two family members file a written statement objecting to the donation, the procedure is ruled out.

According to a recent survey run by pollster TNS, some 55 percent of Poles agree to a posthumous organ donation, but only one in five actually spoke to their relatives about their conviction. (aba/rg/rk)

Source: PAP