–
In 2020, the first year of the pandemic, in Extremadura there were 46 organ donors. Thus, the rate per million inhabitants was 43.4% (at the national level, 37.4%). Likewise, there were 43 kidney transplants (compared to 36 in 2019); There were also 30 liver transplants (compared to 31 in 2019). The refusal to donate was 10% (compared to 14% for the national group).
Likewise, in 2020 bone marrow donors were ‘important’, with 1,368 (the largest number in the entire series). “All these figures show that the donation process in Extremadura must continue to be strengthened and must continue to be carried out the way we are doing it, although with improvements in the organization because the system is dynamic.”
These are the words that the Minister of Health and Social Services has pronounced this Monday, Jose Maria Vergeles, at a press conference accompanied by the director of the National Transplant Organization (ONT), Beatriz Domínguez Gil.
Vergeles highlights the “takeoff” of 2019 in Extremadura in living donor transplantation, which “should continue to be promoted”. “We are making great strides in setting up a team in living kidney transplantation, and this will lead to us having to thank the preponderant role of the Badajoz Urology Service, assisted by the vascular surgery service,” he adds.
In the same way, he emphasized that “organ transplants would not be possible if there were no blood donors.”
Reference
For his part, Domínguez Gil defends that the Spanish donation and transplant program is a “reference” model internationally, and showed its commitment to networking to continue promoting it.
Along these lines, it stands out that in the first five months of 2021, donation activity has increased by 14% and transplantation activity by 23% throughout the country, compared to the same period in 2020. «We continue not to reach the levels of 2019 , which was a record year for all intents and purposes, but the entire network and each of the autonomous communities are very committed to achieving the levels of excellence to which we are accustomed and that taking into account the situation we have experienced (the pandemic of the coronavirus) we have managed to maintain », he adds.
– .
