With over 50,000 EU citizens currently waiting for an organ transplant, what is being done at EU level to alleviate this substantial burden?
The latest statistics show that there are almost 56,000 citizens currently waiting for an organ transplant. Over the years, especially during the last two decades transplantation of organs has developed onto an established practice, bringing immense benefits to hundreds of thousands of patients. However, we must be under the hallucinatory impression that once a name is on a list, the worries are over. Every day nearly 10 people in Europe die while waiting for organs. A significant number of patients die as result of the chronic shortage of organs, as organ transplantation in the European Union has amplified steadily, faster than the number of organs donated. Although there is a good level of cooperation between member states, much more can be done to assert a better medium through which these transplantations occur.
In fact, a draft directive was only this week approved in the European Parliament. This directive deals with quality and safety standards for human organs used for transplants, covering all stages of the system from the actual donation, to the transplantation. This directive essentially seeks to encompass human organs to complete the legislation based on the Article 152 of the EC Treaty. The new Article lists diseases and major health scourges but, more importantly, all causes of danger to human health, as well as the general objective of improving health, within the concept cooperation between member states.
Organs are exchanged between member states, and this is considered as an important way of ensuring a better match between donor and recipient - a process that would inevitably be improving the quality of the transplant. This is predominantly important for the optimum treatment of special cases such as patients requiring urgent treatment or paediatric patients. If it is established that organs are available, these organs should be able to cross borders without unnecessary problems and delays. A number of mechanisms have been proposed to move in this direction.
An important aspect that is being tackled is to appoint an authority in every country that would bear the responsibility for quality and safety standards. This authority would be tasked to oversee all stages from the actual donation, right up to the transplantation or disposal, bolstered by rules as stringent as seen necessary by the individual member state. Certain states may decide that they would need stricter rules due to the dynamics of demographics, crime or other factors. It is envisaged that these authorities would have the power to approve procurement organisations and transplant centres, supervise organ swaps between member states and third countries and collect data.
It was stressed that donations must be voluntary; otherwise there would be an obvious risk of this vision to morph effortlessly into a commercial venture. This obviously means that advertising the need or availability of human organs will not be permitted under any circumstances, where the aim would be financial gain. The imbalance between need and availability of organs might lead to the cases of commercialisation, which may well be malevolent offshoot of illegal organ trafficking, a complete violation of fundamental human rights.
A whole network of authorities are to be set up by the Commission with the aim of supporting and enhancing cooperation between member states, whilst also implementing procedures that ensure information is effectively passed on from one state to another.
A solid platform is already in place, where sharing of best practices, models and expertise across the European Union has proved valuable in increasing organ donor rates. Yet this platform may be bolstered by adoption of common quality and safety standards is a necessity which allows for enhanced cooperation and cross border exchange between Member States, maximising the potential to increase number of transplantations.
Over past fifty years, organ transplantation had evolved into an established and efficient worldwide practice which improves quality of life and life expectancy. With steps such as this recent directive, the process is made more efficient and more effective, with our own Commissioner John Dalli stating: “this is a concrete example of how EU legislation can work to save lives and create solidarity in Europe”. We are now eager too see a hopefully hasty implementation of this directive by member states. We usually appreciate how with cooperation between states we can better our life. This time it can, literally, save our life.
David Casa is a Nationalist MEP
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www.davidcasa.eu