ask for "increased awareness" at the World Congress of Transplantation in Buenos Aires

Specialists and relatives of people who received or donated organs considered necessary better communication and greater awareness of the population about the problem of ablation, within the framework of the 29th. World Transplant Congress, organized by the World Transplant Society (TTS), which began this Sunday in Buenos Aires and is the first to be held in Latin America.

The Congress will take place over four days, until next Wednesday, at the Exhibition and Convention Center of the City of Buenos Aires, located in the Buenos Aires neighborhood of Recoleta, with the participation of more than 3,000 speakers, including specialists, officials from entities international organ donation centers and relatives of patients.

The vice president of the Argentine Transplant Society (SAT), Gabriel Gondolesi told Télam that Holding the Congress is “a real pride, because the world transplant society is 58 years old, and because it is the first time it has come to Latin America, after six years of struggle by the different transplant organizations in South America.” .

In this sense, he considered that the congress has “great relevance in the aspect of research, in raising awareness about the problem of organ donation and new regulations to facilitate donation”.

The specialist, who has been part of the SAT for 25 years, considered that the meeting “will allow us to observe the innovations in medicine at a global level that, for multiple reasons, cannot be done in the country, in addition to making the world known what we do in terms of donation”.

In this sense, Gustavo de Mare, father of Vicky, a 12-year-old girl who received an organ transplant, stressed that “greater awareness is needed on the part of the population about the importance of ablation” and indicated that “every body and Public ministries must address the problem of female circumcision more naturally, because we can all be on the waiting list”.

Along the same lines, Silvia Irigaray, president of Mothers of Pain, and mother of Maximiliano Tasca, who was murdered by a police officer in December 2001, remarked that “there are failures in communication, because messages are received every day from parents who They don’t want to know anything about donating their organs and that’s why I work every day to make parents aware that donating has nothing to do with death but with life”.

Nancy Ascher, an American surgeon and a kidney donor for her sister, indicated that the problem of organ donation “affects all countries worldwide, due to the regulatory and cultural difficulties that this entails”.

The surgeon, who was the first woman to perform a liver transplant in the world, stressed that worldwide “more than ten million people need an organ transplant and there needs to be a comprehensive approach so that more lives can be saved” .

Federico Oppenheimer, a nephrologist at the Hospital Clinic in Barcelona, ​​and who was his son’s living donor, remarked that “living donors are deeply aware of the problems faced by someone who is going to receive a donation.”

In this sense, he pointed out that “the donation is a social fact and therefore society must be aware of all the problems related to it.”

Then it was the turn of Romina Pérez Manelli, a lawyer and member of the council of patient advisors, who told the story of her experience on the waiting list to receive a heart donation: “Talking about organ donation should not be taboo, because all people, regardless of their ages, can talk about this.

At the same time, he emphasized that “a better joint work with associations and health entities is necessary, so that the relationship with patients is harmonic and respectful.”

Finally, Elizabeth Schick, president of the World Transplant Games Federation, a competition that brings together athletes who received a cut, recalled the difficulties she had in addressing the issue of transplants in Europe in the 1990s.

“We didn’t know much about organ donation. At the age of 20 they discovered that I needed a kidney transplant due to organ failure and neither my family nor I understood the situation,” Schick remarked, moved to remember the fact.

In this case, Schick stressed that, after receiving the transplant in Switzerland, he had the support of an organization that helps patients, which was considered “key for him to resume sports activities.”

For Ezequiel Lo Cane, father of Justina, the girl who died waiting for a heart donation in 2017 and promoter of the law that bears the same name, he stressed that participation in the congress “is important, because it allows to make known what is being carried out in terms of donation in the country and with the aim of saving the lives of many people”.

Lo Cané, who works on the Casa Justina project, a home that supports patients on the waiting list, stressed that it is necessary to “improve communication in terms of what, how and to whom to communicate.” “It is necessary to generate a containment network of journalists who work on the problem of organ donation, who help us raise awareness through donor stories”.

For her part, Silvia Irigaray, president of Mothers of Pain, spoke about the protocol for police forces in ablation processes and organ and tissue implants in the event of traumatic death, applied in the province of Buenos Aires: “The protocol began because , when what happened to my son (Maximiliano), I was mistreated, because the police did not know what to do with the case”, in relation to the so-called “Floresta massacre”, in which three young people were murdered in 2001 by a police officer federal.

In this sense, I consider “that in order to address the problem of donations, it is necessary to speed up and for that, it is necessary to have knowledge”.

Finally, he considered that “more communication is necessary, listening and being listened to, and especially helping and raising awareness among parents who are in a situation, that donation has nothing to do with death but with helping another who needs it” .

According to National Central Single Coordinating Institute for Ablation and Implantation, a total of 7,510 people are on the waiting list for organ transplants in the country, while 1,115 ablations have been performed so far this year, from 506 people who donated their organs.