Brazilian Health Minister, launched Brazil’s National Organ and Tissue Donation Campaign, Friday, September 23, the southeastern Brazilian city of São Paulo. The event marked the opening of National Organ and Tissue Donation Week, which will run through September 30.
The Brazilian government spends around US$ 175 million annually on the National Transplant Program, and Brazil’s public health system performs more transplants than any other public health system in the world.
This information comes from the coordinator of the Ministry of Health’s National Transplant System, Roberto Schilindwein. He explained that “this is also an offshoot of the structure of the system, which covers 22 states, with 540 accredited institutions and 1,338 medical teams authorized to carry out these procedures.”
Data from the Brazilian Organ and Tissue Donation Alliance (Adote) indicate that around 63,000 people in Brazil are awaiting compatible organs (kidneys: 29,389; corneas: 25,483; livers: 6,887; pancreases/kidneys: 278; hearts: 302; pancreases: 166; and lungs: 110).
Schilindwein announced that the Ministry of Health is preparing an administrative order to professionalize the function of coordinator of the in-house hospital commission for organ collection and require every hospital with more than 80 beds to create such an in-house commission.
“The coordinator has the role of organizing the process and alerting people in the ICUs and emergency services and should train hospital employees, explaining the need for reporting the death and approaching the family,” he points out.
Agência Brasil
