Over 100 organ transplants in Slovenia last year

Ljubljana – A total of 105 organ transplants were performed in the UKC Ljubljana hospital last year. With 18.5 actual donors per million people, Slovenia ranked fourth among eight countries in the Eurotransplant region, the Slovenia-Transplant institute said in a press release.

Last year 125 organs were donated: 60 kidneys, 32 livers, 18 lungs, 13 hearts and two pancreases. A total of 41 donors died last year, aged 54 on average.

According to the Slovenia-Transplant institute, fewer donors died and fewer transplants were performed than in 2020 but the result is still good given the extreme epidemiological situation.

A total of 52 kidney, 21 liver, 17 heart and 15 lung transplants were performed last year.

The institute is also happy with the share of consents that relatives gave for organ donations, which shows that trust in the system of organ donation has not been shaken.

Last year, 55 talks were conducted with the relatives of the deceased about organ donations and in 84% of cases they gave their consent.

Slovenia-Transplant director Andrej Gadžijev plans to introduce some systemic changes to optimise the decision making process and expand the donor programme to enable Slovenia to keep up with global trends in this field.

All this is also to help Slovenia improve its self-sufficiency, which is crucial in case of extraordinary events such as epidemics, when borders may be closed for a longer period of time and the survival of patients who need organ transplant may depend exclusively on the country’s own donation programme, Gadžijev said.

At the beginning of January, 180 patients waited for an organ transplant, 99 of them for a new kidney, 57 a heart, 21 for a liver transplant, six a lung transplant and four a pancreas transplant.

The average waiting time for a kidney transplant is 300 days, and for a heart transplant it is 247 days. Patients on average wait 155 days for a liver transplant and 100 days for a lung transplant.

Last year, 225 more people than in 2020 decided to donate their organs and tissues after death, according to data from the Slovenian national register.

The post Over 100 organ transplants in Slovenia last year appeared first on Slovenia Times.