The UB leads a unique European project to promote organ donation in the European Union and neighbouring countries
Only a 10% of the world population has access to a transplant and many patients die while on the waiting list. In the framework of the European Union -with 28 member countries and a population over 500 people- more than 87,000 people are still waiting for a transplant, while the number of donors per year is around 10,500.
The main obstacle in the medical practice of the transplant -a consolidated and highly effective technique- is the lack of organs worldwide. Raising awareness among society and promoting the training around highly specialized experts in the 28 member countries of the European Union and its neighbouring countries in the community area, aiming to improve the rate of organ donations are the main reference points for EUDONORGAN. This European project is led by the University of Barcelona, together with Bosch i Gimpera Foundation and the DTI Donation & Transplantation Institute, located in the Barcelona Science Park.
Only a 10% of the world population has access to a transplant and many patients die while on the waiting list. In the framework of the European Union -with 28 member countries and a population over 500 people- more than 87,000 people are still waiting for a transplant, while the number of donors per year is around 10,500.
The main obstacle in the medical practice of the transplant -a consolidated and highly effective technique- is the lack of organs worldwide. Raising awareness among society and promoting the training around highly specialized experts in the 28 member countries of the European Union and its neighbouring countries in the community area, aiming to improve the rate of organ donations are the main reference points for EUDONORGAN. This European project is led by the University of Barcelona, together with Bosch i Gimpera Foundation and the DTI Donation & Transplantation Institute, located in the Barcelona Science Park.
From the European Parliament to all society
The European Parliament has directly launched in a pioneering and exceptional way the project called EUDONORGAN (Training and social awareness for increasing organ donation in the European Union and neighbouring countries), which is a service contract awarded by the European Commission from the European Union budget.
This project, led by the UB, has been active since 2016 and will last until 2019. It will cover the needs of training and social sensitization on organ donation with an ambitious work program -instructorsʼ training, social awareness, dissemination and assessment- aimed at health professionals, institutional representatives, managers, patients, social stakeholders, opinion leaders and the media. Other partners in this project are the Institute for Organ and Tissue Transplantation of the Republic of Slovenia; the Institute for Transplantation and Biomedicine -Ministry of Health of the Republic of Croatia; the Italian National Transplant Centre of the National Institute of Health and the company Dinama (Spain), experts on consultancy and assessment of health projects.
Training the trainers at the University of Barcelona and Hospital Clínic
In this frame, on September 18, at 3 p.m., the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences of the University of Barcelona is holding the first session of these conferences of Train the Trainers. Coordinated by DTI Foundation, this area of work will gather more than a hundred attendants from the twenty-eight countries of the European Union, from September 18 to 22, in Barcelona and Sant Hilari Sacalm.
In the opening ceremony, chaired by the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Francesc Cardellach, will take part the director of EUDONORGAN project, Martí Manyalich, lecturer from the Department of Surgery and Surgical Specializations of the UB and director of DTI Foundation; Richard McGeehan (European Commission); Gabriel Mato (European Parliament); Antonio Alarcó (University of Tenerife); Colin White (Irish Kidney Association & World Transplant Games); Ignasi Belda (Barcelona Science Park); Jaume Tort (Catalan Transplant Organization); Gloria de la Rosa (National Transplant Organization); Ian Palombi (Council of Europe) and José Ramón Núñez Peña (WHO).
Ten times the current donations to reach a million transplants
“In the world, only a 0.05 % of people who die donate organs. These figures should be multiplied per ten, that is, a 0.5 % of the population should be donors, and therefore we could reach a million transplants per year”, highlighted Martí Manyalich.
“European projects like this one have a positive effect to develop tools and skills”, continues the director of the project. “With this consortium of European experts, EUDONORGAN aims to train people by offering knowledge, sharing the project, which should have continuity, controlling it and creating strong ties within society. We want to train healthcare professionals, who are leaders and in charge of different social activities, for the countries in the European Union and neighbouring countries too. The final goal is to increase the number of organs for those in the waiting list, which would be our task to get self-sufficiency”.
Seeking a response to a growing demand
According to José Ramón Núñez Peña, medical director of the Donation and Transplant Program of the World Health Organization (WHO), “unfortunately, the number of patients who suffer from pathologies such as diabetes, high blood pressure, hepatitis, cardiovascular diseases, etc. is still growing, so the need for organ transplants is continuously increasing”.
“Therefore -continues Núñez Peña- any initiative aiming to raise awareness and involve people in this issue is not only welcome but it is our big responsibility. Ranging from health authorities, professionals, associations, media… all of us are must work to involve society, and this is what makes EUDONORGAN important”.
“Educating the public about how organ donation works and how it impacts on the lives of others is how we can encourage more people to say yes to organ donation and reduce rates of refusal” says Colin White, representative of the Irish Kidney Association, and Irish entity that works with patients of nephritic diseases, and the World Transplant Games.
An outstanding scientific and training career in organ donation and transplantation
The University of Barcelona and Hospital Clinic launched several projects in the field of organ donation more than twelve years ago. For instance, the European Quality System for Tissue Banking (EQSTB, 2004-2007), to improve the quality and security of the European tissue banks. From 2007 to 2009, the ETPOD project aimed to train about organ donation in Europe. From 2009 to 2013, the Organ Donation European Quality System (ODEQUS) focused on assessing the hospital activity regarding donation in brain death, cardiac death and living donation. Between 2007 and 2009, the Euro Living Donor (EULID) project trained more than 3,000 people at a regional and national level. In addition, from 2009 to 2012, a psychosocial monitoring on living donors in Europe was carried out with the ELIPSY project.
From 2013 to 2014, within the framework of the Living Donor Observatory (LIDOBS), the best practices to improve the quality, security and transparencies -regarding ethical and legal issues- in living donors were pinpointed. EDITH (2016-2018), the latest ongoing project, is focused on the modality of treatment and practices of transplantation in patients with chronic renal diseases. In addition, there has been more participation in cooperation projects between the European Union and areas of North Africa (EMPODaT), the Baltic countries (Seeding Life) and recently with European partners and China (KeTLOD). Moreover, Martí Manyalich is also leading the international educational program Transplant Procurement Management (TPM), a worldwide model in health professionals training that has trained around 13,000 experts from a hundred countries worldwide since it was created in 1991, within the teaching framework of the University of Barcelona.
More information in this video made by a group of students of the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences of the University of Barcelona.