The Portuguese Transplantation Society (SPT) advocates a legislative change to take advantage of the organs of end -of -life people, estimating that this would increase by 30% available transplant bodies and contribute to reducing waiting lists.
A single change in the law would allow increase the available organs 30% for transplants.
“In Portugal, it is not possible to reap organs of all potential deceased donors, contrary to other countries with broader legislation,” the president of SPT told Lusa, on the eve of the National Day of Organ Donation and Transplantation, which is marked at East in Coimbra.
Second Cristina Jorgethe transplant activity in Portugal is still confronted with “Legislative limitations”which prevent, for example, the collection of organs of people who are in intensive care “at the end of life” and without possible recovery.
“These patients are accompanied with dignity to the end, but our legislation does not allow organ harvesting, unlike other countries Where this already happens, ”said the expert, for whom an change in this regard could result at least 30% of the available transplant organs.
What happens in Portugal?
In Portugal, Harvesting is only allowed in donors in brain death – When the death was confirmed by neurological criteria.
It is also allowed in deceased by non -controlled cardiocirculatory stopin which sudden death was verified after underwent resuscitation maneuvers without success.
In addition, the vivo donor transplantation is only possible in some organsthe renal being the most common.
Cristina Jorge said that even if the “legislative part, which is very important”, would be necessary to create the conditions to take advantage of the collected bodies, which would have to be reinforced the teams of health professionals and means allocated to transplantation.
In Spain there are already remarkable progress
Cristina Jorge The Case of Spain, where the donors who died with controlled cardiocirculatory stop criteria already represent more than half of the organs collected for transplantation.
According to the expert, if Portugal adopted this change to the law, this would allow it to substantially reduce the waiting lists, pointing to the case of close to 1,900 patients who are in the active list for renal transplants, the most performed in the country.
He said, with a waiting list around 19,000 patients ready to receive a kidney, were made at the National Health Service 538 renal transplants in 2024, which demonstrates that the number of interventions continues to be insufficient to significantly reduce the size of the list.
Still, Portugal is a reference
Last year, 932 organs were transplanted, of which 71 of living kidney donors were collected, and 1,083 organs of deceased donors were collected.
Portugal has presented, in recent years, a use of organs above 80%, which Cristina Jorge points out to be an adequate rate. Some of the organs that were not used in the country, for example, due to the absence of compatible receiver, were sent to Spain, so they were not discarded.
Although there is still ample space for improvements, expert also emphasizes that the country “remains a reference” In the activity of transplantation, what it attributes to the commitment of the professionals and the collaboration of the Portuguese, but also the way the organ capture system was designed.
In 2024, Portugal was, in proportional terms, the First country worldwide with more donors in brain death And there was a historical record of harvested organs, as well as the highest number of heart transplants (58) and the second best result of kidney (538).
“Anyway, we still have a lot of organs, because also people who die with these criteria are also older and are often sick and, therefore, not all organs that could be potentially harvested or until they are harvested can be used by their inherent quality,” he warned.
In Portugal, all citizens who do not sign up for the National Register of Non -donors (Rennda) may be.
