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The European Commission aiming at increasing organ donation rates |  |  |  |
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For many patients transplantation is the only possibility to stay alive. At the moment fifty-six thousand patients in European Union are waiting for a compatible donor. It is estimated that twelve people die every day waiting for a transplantation. The proposal for the European Commission directive and the plan of cooperation between Member States adopted in December 2008 concern increasing organ availability and enhancing the efficiency and accessibility of transplantation systems.
The proposed directive provides a clear legal basis for organ transplantation and donation in European Union. It means that every Member State shall establish or point a state institution responsible for enforcing and supervising EU standards of quality and safety in transplantology. The standards include creating separate systems of organ origin identification and reporting significant events and unwelcome reactions. To facilitate the exchange of organs between countries special procedures of collecting data on organ characteristics shall be settled and national quality programmes shall guarantee constant monitoring of performance and improvement of learning process. The goals of the directive are: minimizing the risk for organ recipients, improving and optimizing organ distribution in EU as well as supplying the transplant team with all the information necessary to undertake the appropriate (and fully informed) risk assessment.
Action plan (2009-2015) includes 10 priority actions. The most important of them are: improving quality and safety of organs in Europe, increasing organ availability and enhancing the efficiency and accessibility of transplantation systems. The objective of the plan is to stimulate common actions and facilitate coordination between Member States. It can be obtained through the exchange of best practices or through signing all-EU agreements on particular issues. One of the priority areas is increasing the scope of knowledge and improving communication skills among health care workers and groups supporting patients in the field of organ donations. Another important area is exchanging experiences on transplantation coordinators' work in order to increase organ availability.
For more information look at: http://ec.europa.eu/health/ph_threats/human_substance/organs_en.htm