LAS PALMAS DE GRAN CANARIA, 10 (EUROPA PRESS)
The Dr. Negrín University Hospital of Gran Canaria reached 30 organ donors in 2020, which represents an increase of 7% compared to the results obtained in 2019, according to the Ministry of Health of the Government of the Canary Islands.
Thanks to these 30 donors, 85 organ transplants have been performed; offering 85 opportunities to continue living to people whose only hope was in having a transplant.
This hospital complex is one more year the hospital in the autonomous community with the highest number of organ donors, also ranking above the average number of donors in the rest of the national territory.
In this way, its donation activity has doubled from the 15 donors obtained during the year 2017 to the 30 of the last financial year, largely thanks to the implementation of new donation strategies and the involvement of health professionals from specialties of different services such as Emergency, Palliative, Neurology, Neurosurgery and Pneumology, among others.
This circumstance has allowed the expansion of donation procedures, normally initiated in Intensive Medicine or Resuscitation units.
The increase compared to the data for 2019 in donation occurs especially in the modality in which death is established by circulatory and respiratory criteria, that is, donation in asystole.
Precisely, in this modality, started in Spain in recent years and which requires a different and more complex infrastructure than the classic donation after brain death, the increase has been 75%. HOW TO BECOME A DONOR
Between 5 and 10% of the people who are waiting for a transplant die each year, so despite these results, professionals insist on the importance of maintaining this level of donation in the Canary Islands.
It is necessary to remember that although the donor card expresses the will to donate, its value is only testimonial, so that if a person wants their desire to donate to be safely respected, they must make an Advance Declaration of Will.
It is a document that contains the instructions and options that the healthcare personnel who attend to the patient must respect regarding the care and treatment of their pathology, in cases where they cannot express their wishes personally. Provisions regarding your body and organ and tissue donation may be reflected in this document.
Similarly, the transplant coordinators must, in all cases in which the deceased person or who may die in the short term may be a donor, ask their relatives to sign the consent for the donation.
Finally, the family, if it is aware of the deceased’s decision, tends to respect the will of the deceased. For this reason, in general, it is enough to express to loved ones in life the desire to help other people through donation.
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