2023-05-20 08:00:00
A young person can save the lives of eleven others by becoming an organ donor. Not just saving, it can help and make blind people able to see.
“You can go to heaven, but you can leave your organs down here, life goes on,” said Pablo Manríquez, a 37-year-old man from Bariloche, who spent hours and hours of his life dieting and hemodialysis for IGA Nephropathy; and today he witnesses that what seemed incurable might be overcome.
His kidneys were not filtering, but sur sister Viviana gave him another life, another chance. In 2015, she donated a kidney to him following an intervention at the German Hospital in Buenos Aires. The social work did not cover all their expenses and they had to sell empanadas and giveaways to finance the expenses of living abroad for eight months.
“They pushed me to get out of dialysis quickly where I spent 3 times a week, 4 or 5 hours a day”he said regarding his family. “With my sister Viviana it is an eternal thank you,” said the patient and did not fail to name his doctor Junqueras. Today the man enjoys his children, he quit his job and went off as a self-employed person.
“I feel immense joy from everything that happens to me, being away from the machines is breathing another air.” For him, he is lucky because he knows of people who spend years waiting for a donor and many die on the way.
Today in the region 393 people are waiting for organs and more than 600 people are in the registration process to the waiting lists of the National Central Single Coordinating Institute of Ablation and Implantation (Incucai). There are 192 in Río Negro and 201 in Neuquén, as of May 19, 2023.
Neuquén is ranked 8th nationally Regarding the number of people on the waiting list, including organs and tissues, with 213 patients and 255 in the registration process. This means 2.1% of the country’s total in Incucai records. Of these people, 201 need one or more organs and 12 other tissues.
Río Negro, meanwhile, is located in place 10 with a total of 197 patients on the waiting list (as of 05/19), 2.0% of the national total, and another 359 in the process of being added to the list. (192 patients await organs and 5 tissues).
record donations
The first hours of 2023, They started at the “Ramón Carrillo” hospital in Bariloche with the donation of a deceased patient with brain death. So far in 2023, there have been 14 deceased-donor organ transplants in the region (5 from Río Negro and 9 from Neuquén) and 6 real donors, in establishments in those provinces. (1 in Río Negro and 5 in Neuquén).
Río Negro already came from a 2022 with a record of donations, especially in corneal tissue, eye ablations, which helped hundreds of blind people to see. The same scenario was repeated in Neuquén.
“We have advanced in training and equipment. The procurement of corneas allowed us to respond to the provincial waiting list”
Cristina Orlandi, hospital coordinator Cucai RN in Roca
In 2022 the goals were exceeded, achieving a record in Río Negro with 202 donation processes and 52 effective donors. Gone are the 37 donors of 2019, that although they were pre-pandemic values, they came with an upward trend. In Neuquén, there were important advances. Sandra González Cruz, coordinator of Cucai Neuquén assured that a donor rate above the national average, currently 7.35 per million inhabitants, so far this year.
Leonardo Uchiumi, Cucai Río Negro provincial coordinator, commented that donation processes in 2022 were five times more than in 2021 and more than double the number of effective donors. Of these operations, eight were multi-organ donors and 44 corneal tissue, representing an increase of 135% year-on-year. Besides, 73 people from Río Negro received a transplant during 2022.
From the Pedro Moguillansky Hospital in Cipolletti, 18 cornea transplants were performed in the Cornea Procurement and Transplant Unit. 35 transplants have been carried out since its creation in March 2021.
“Death is part of our cycle, it equalizes us. Faced with this equality, we can make a difference by being donors. This decision can change everything for thousands who are waiting.”
Leonardo Uchiumi, Provincial Coordinator of Cucai Río Negro
So it also happened that in 2022 the number of enrollments on the renal waiting list doubled compared to the previous year in Río Negro; and this only represents 20% of dialysis patients. In 2022, the number of dialysis patients increased by 5.8% compared to the previous year, with increasingly higher costs for public health, such as the 2,000 million pesos that were needed annually. The need for transplants is strengthened, renewed and growing day by day.
For this year, from Cucai Río Negro the goal is to start up the Organ and Tissue Procurement Hospital Units (Uhprot) in hospitals. This seeks to develop the donation process in the institution itself, to increase the availability of organs and tissues for those on the waiting list.
“Statistically we are much closer to being on a waiting list for a transplant than to being a multi-organ donor. This has to call us to reflection”, assured Leonardo Uchiumi, Cucai Río Negro provincial coordinator.
Organ donation not only has a therapeutic action and cures or improves the quality of life of those who need it, but also it also contributes to the mourning of the relatives of a deceased.
We must increase the supply of organs and tissues to the population through a prepared health system, with trained human resources, with inputs and all expenses”
Sandra González Cruz, provincial coordinator of Cucai Neuquén
Donor-generating institutions in the region are the Ramón Carrillo Hospital in Bariloche, the Pedro Moguillansky Hospital in Cipolletti and the Francisco López Lima Hospital in RocaHospital Castro Rendón de Neuquén, Bouquet Roldán, Heller, Imaging Clinic and Neuquén Polyclinic.
“There are many procurations in Río Negro, we are among the main ones in the country where we procure fabrics”
Germán Santamaría, hospital coordinator Cucai RN in Bariloche
Kidney donation: high demand
The great demand is in kidney transplantation. Of the 393 people who need an organ in the region, 92% are waiting for a kidney (363 total, 189 from Neuquén and 179 from Río Negro). Today there are 1,508 throughout the region who depend on dialysis, an artificial process that does the work of the kidneys when they do not work properly (677 in Neuquén and 821 in Río Negro).
“The big problem is the kidney, because dialysis exists as a replacement treatment. So, the waiting list is increasing disproportionately to the number of organs that we are ablating, despite the increases that are taking place and the wait has been for years,” explained Uchuimi.
At the national level, 78% of Argentines on the waiting list need a kidney transplant. Secondly, livers are needed and then lungs. In Río Negro lives one of the eight people in the country who are waiting for a pancreas transplant.
Bone marrow donation: year of goals achieved
Throughout the region, 2022 was a year in which the goals for Bone Marrow or Hematopoietic Progenitor Cells (HSC) transplants were exceeded. A year to remember, as 37 Neuquinos received these cells and 25 in the case of Rio Negros, historical records.
It is cells, CPH, have the capacity to originate all the components of the blood (red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets) and that is why a transplant of these can cure some blood diseases.
In Neuquén, there was a jump from 2020 to 2022. From 17 receivers in 2020 to 27 in 2021 and 37 in 2022. In Río Negro the same phenomenon happened with a jump in recent years. In 2020 there were 12 patients, 23 in 2021 and 25 last year. In Rio Negro, the first residents transplanted with CPH were in 2002.
In ahistorical cumulative, 228 patients from Neuquén agreed to bone marrow transplants between 2010 and 2023, of which 30 were pediatric patients. The average age is 43 years.
In In the case of Río Negro, a total of 192 people were beneficiaries of bone marrow transplantation from 2002 to 2023. 30 were children and adolescents. The average age is 41 years in this province, according to data from the Sintra Central of Reports and Statistics. Last year, 110 new CPH donors were incorporated in Río Negro, and there are already 3,012 registered in the registry.
Corneal donors: towards a “self-sufficiency”
Not too long ago, people on the waiting list for corneas were waiting years. Now, this has changed in the region. In Neuquén, 63 corneas have been ablated in 2023. Río Negro is one of the few “self-sufficient” provinces in procuring corneal transplants.
Those from Río Negro who need it now travel less and can get it in a few months, thanks to the “sustained generation” of corneal tissue donors. In 2021, the first Cornea Transplant Center and Team was inaugurated in the province, at the Cipolletti hospital. This means that people from Rio Negro no longer have to go to Buenos Aires, Mendoza or Córdoba to get a transplant.
“Before we had 60 patients on the waiting list and many waited 3-4 years to do a transplant, today all those who register get a corneal transplant in less than a year,” said the coordinator of Río Negro.
“We have managed to lower the waiting list in Río Negro a lot”added Germán Santamaría, hospital coordinator of Cucai Bariloche, regarding the corneas.
A human right cannot be bought or sold
Political sectors such as that of the deputy and candidate for president, Javier Milei, have proposed that organ donation be “another market”, but health professionals in the region expressed their opinion on the matter.
Leonardo Uchiumi, from Cucai Río Negro, said that the Argentine Law “exactly prohibits” the commercialization of organs. “Attempts once morest the right to equal and equal access to health,” he said.
Sandra González Cruz, from Cucai Neuquén, said that not only is the principle of legality put into play by national laws that expressly prohibit it; but also a matter of human rights. “The possibility of buying and selling and putting a price on an organ violates human rights and human dignity”, said. It invites “an unfair system of access in the distribution of organs, where those who receive, the one with money, the rich, was always at the end of the recipient and who is going to donate? The poor thing, ”he launched.
“Who do itthey are donors in circumstances of maximum need and poverty, aggravating the consequences with surgery and deficient state of health”regarding international experiences.
“The existence of an illegal activity to commercialize organs in our country is impossible,” added Cristina Orlandi, Roca hospital coordinator.
“Our Transplant Law guarantees voluntary, free and altruistic donations, equity in access”, said the vice president of the Argentine Society of Intensive Care (SATI). For the coordinator of Bariloche, Santamaría, he is “unethical”. “It can only be free and universal, everyone has access to receive an organ and be a donor,” she explained.
- 213
- patients are on the waiting list for organs and tissues in Neuquén and 255 are in the process of admission.
- 197
- patients are on the waiting list for organs and tissues in Río Negro, and 359 are in the process of admission.
- 92%
- of people on the organ waiting list in the region, between Neuquén and Río Negro, are waiting for a kidney.
- 1.508
- People from Río Negro and Neuquén undergo dialysis treatments for kidney failure.
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