Madrid (EFE).- Spain continues to be a world benchmark in donation and transplants, and only in the first five months of this year activity has increased by 12% to reach 1,010 deceased donors and 2,394 transplant patients.
These are the data that the Minister of Health, José Miñones, offered this Tuesday at the ceremony held on the occasion of the National Organ, Cell and Tissue Donor Day that is celebrated tomorrow, and that this year he wanted to pay tribute to the families of the donors.
A quarter of transplants in Europe are done in Spain
One out of every four transplants performed in Europe is performed in Spain, which accounts for 5% worldwide; Our country, he added, is also the leader in donors in asystole, which have increased by 38% compared to the same period of the previous year.
According to data from the National Transplant Organization (ONT), so far this year, donation and transplant activity has increased by 12%, with a total of 1,010 deceased donors -to which must be added other 169 living donors- and 2,394 transplant patients.
84% of families say yes to organ donation
About 84% of families say yes to donating their loved one’s organs, 14 points more than they did in the early 1990s; In the program’s 34-year history, a total of 50,932 families have fulfilled the wish of their loved one, a generosity that has allowed 122,317 transplants to be carried out.
A consent rate much higher than that of other countries such as Germany and Australia (56%), the United States (76%), Italy (71%) or the United Kingdom (66%), according to data from the Global Donation and Transplant Observatory ( GODT), managed by the ONT as a Collaborating Center of the World Health Organization.
In the same way, if in 1989, there were 550 people who gave their organs after their death, in ten years that figure tripled to 1,334. In 2022, there were 2,196 organ donors, which represents a growth of 300%.
Likewise, since June 2021, there have been 70 people who have donated their organs after receiving assistance in dying and have made transplants possible for 197 patients.