For the surgery, in which the Regional Transplant Coordination, the transplant coordinators of the islands and the National Transplant Organization have collaborated, a large health device has been organized in which professionals from the Lanzarote hospital and the Nuestra Señora de Candelaria University Hospital intervenedin Tenerife, specialized in the maintenance, evaluation and extraction of organs and tissues.
Thus, the team from the Tenerife center responsible for the intervention moved an Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO) system to Lanzarote, a necessary infrastructure for this type of transplant that allows adequate support for the donor’s organs with the priority objective of transplanting in the best possible conditions.
The Molina Orosa Transplant Coordination team, made up of the specialists in Intensive Care Medicine, Tamara Cantera and Priscila Carcelén Y nurse Penelope Gomezand the medical management of the center, thanked both the relatives of the donor and the specialists who have participated in this device, and explained the possibility of continuing the line of collaboration with the rest of the transplant units of the hospitals of the Canary Islands that allow the donation of organs in asystole, thus guaranteeing a second chance to patients who require a transplant.
Donations in 2021
During 2021, the Canary Islands registered a total of 105 donations, of which 57 were due to brain death, 40 in controlled asystole and eight from living donors.
The non-heart beating donation modality accounts for 41.2 percent of deceased donors. Controlled asystole donation allows the donation of organs from people in whom the diagnosis of death has been established by circulatory and respiratory criteria.
For this type of donation to occur, it is a necessary condition that the death of the patient has been predicted in the short term under certain conditions; specifying, in addition, the implementation of an infrastructure different from that carried out with deceased donors in brain death.
As for the transplants, in 2021 took place in the islands a total of 184, of which 143 correspond to kidney transplants, 23 liver, 17 heart and one pancreatic.
Currently, to facilitate organ donation, the person who wishes to be a donor can make a Advance Declaration of Will (MAV), a document that contains the instructions and options that must be respected by the health personnel that assists the grantor regarding the care and treatment of their health; the provisions regarding the fate of your body and the donation of organs and tissues and for which you can request an appointment at 012 or check this website.