Portugal recorded around a thousand organ transplants in 2023, the highest number ever recorded in the country, Health Minister Manuel Pizarro announced today.
“The figures are still preliminary and very positive. In 2023, there will have been 966 transplanted organs and this is, in fact, the highest number ever, far surpassing the previous year’s figure and the previous record, which was set in 2009,” he said.
At the end of the opening session of the 2nd National Organ Donation Days, which are taking place today in Coimbra, Manuel Pizarro alluded to the fact that organ transplantation is limited to the availability of organs that can be transplanted.
“We usually harvest organs from deceased donors, we also harvest from living donors, but obviously this is an activity that will always be limited. We’re talking above all about kidney donation and, in some very specific cases, liver donation,” he added.
Speaking to journalists, the government official, who is also a doctor, alluded to the possibility of increasing organ harvesting from patients who are in cardiac arrest.
“During a certain period of cardiorespiratory arrest, it will still be possible to harvest viable organs. This requires a great deal of sophistication in the organization of hospitals, but it also requires adapting the legal framework so that, with all the ethical guarantees in relation to the people concerned, it is possible to obtain these organs that can save lives,” he said.
Speaking at the opening of the II National Organ Donation Days, Maria Antónia Escoval, president of the board of the Portuguese Blood and Transplant Institute, said that 966 organs had been transplanted and 1,060 harvested.
“It’s the best time series in terms of kidneys, deceased donors and living donors, lungs and pancreas,” she said.
According to Maria Antónia Escoval, this is preliminary data, which should be published at the end of April, beginning of May.
The II National Organ Donation Days on the theme of “More Organs… more transplantation” are being promoted by the Intensive Care Medicine Service of the Coimbra Local Health Unit (CHUC), in partnership with the CHUC Organ Harvesting and Coordination Office.