The cooperation between Cyprus, Greece and Israel in organ transplants is excellent, Head of the Transplant Centre at the Nicosia General Hospital, Nephrologist Dr Andreas Soloukidis, has told CNA.
Dr. Soloukidis, who is also Vice President of the Cyprus Transplant Council, said that from the recent organ donation of a young Cypriot woman who was killed in a traffic accident, five people were given a second chance in life through a titanic effort by surgical teams from Cyprus, Greece and Israel, noting that all the recipients are in very good health.
Asked about the recent heart transplant from a young Cypriot woman who was killed in a car accident to a 45-year-old woman in Israel, Dr. Soloukidis said that this particular case is the result of a collaboration that the Ministry of Health has signed years ago with the National Transplant Organization of Israel and of Greece.
Under this agreement, he explained, “organs that remain unavailable in Cyprus due to the small population and size of the country, which does not perform organ transplants such as hearts or lungs or livers, are given to these countries, as a priority to the National Transplant Organization of Greece”.
In the event, he added, that an organ is rejected by the Greek Organisation, then it is given to Israel as a priority. If there is no recipient available in either of these two countries, then it is donated through a platform so that it can be made available to another European country.
Regarding last week’s transplants, he told CNA that there was a collaboration of four different teams, a team from the Onassis Hospital in Athens that took the lungs, a team from the Hospital in Israel that received the heart transplant, a team from Ippokrateion General Hospital of Thessaloniki that received the liver and a team from Cyprus that received the two kidneys.
“All the organs have been transplanted. The two Cypriot kidney recipients, like the others, are in excellent condition. The organs worked immediately and so these people, five fellow human beings, received a second chance in life.”
In recent years, Dr. Soloukidis said, with the activation of the Transplant Council, the cooperation with these countries has strengthened, especially with Israel, which, “very often, at least twice in the last two years, has received a heart transplant, such as the recent case from the Cypriot donor, but also last year a lung, which was again rejected by Greece and donated to Israel”.
In addition, he said that approximately 50% of liver transplants, which Greece does not accept for various reasons, end up in Israel.
“We have an excellent cooperation with both the National Transplant Organization of Greece and with Israel,” he noted, saying that when necessary, a “titanic coordination effort ” is made by the surgical teams.
Dr Soloukides stressed that this cooperation also benefits Cypriot patients, noting that Cypriot patients who need transplantation of organs that are not transplanted in Cyprus, are on the waiting lists of Greece or Israel.
Regarding this year’s transplant data for Cyprus, Dr. Soloukidis said that 19 kidney transplants have been carried out this year, while more transplants are also planned until the end of the year.
He said that in Cyprus there are usually around ten posthumous donors each year.
This number, he noted, places Cyprus approximately in the middle of the EU list.
“So, all the efforts of the Transplant Council is to increase the number of potential donors even further, so that we can be among the top in the EU.”
Regarding living donors, Dr. Soloukidis said that Cyprus is very high in the European ranking and the aim is to be higher in both categories through various actions.