Priscilla Mazenotti
Reporter - Agência Brasil

Brasília - During National Organ and Tissue Donation Week, which runs through Friday (30), the Ministry of Health announced that the goal for the next two years is to halve the line of 63 thousand people waiting for organ transplants.

In an interview with the "Voice of Brazil," the coordinator of the Ministry of Health's National Transplant System, Roberto Schilindwein, explained that organ and tissue donation depends upon the family, the physicians, and the hospitals.

"It is not only the desire of the family that is involved in the question of donation, but also a very significant participation by physicians," Schilindwein commented. "This occurs in the sense of reporting cases to State Transplant Centers to begin the process and in the participation of the hospital in-house organ donation commissions, which should organize their institution for a donation and be prepared to interview the family to request the donation in an appropriate manner," he explained.

According to the coordinator, it is essential that physicians diagnose the possible donation and report the cases to the state transplant centers. He recalled that all transplants in the country are free of charge, to both the family of the donor and the recipient, and that the medications that the patient must take following surgery are also guaranteed by the Federal Health System (SUS).

"We know that our population is very solidary and our indices of families' refusing organ donations are low. Therefore, it is a population that is conscientious and favorable to organ donations," he observed, underscoring that, more and more, patients have access to the transplant system through the SUS.

Translation: David Silberstein