Transplantation in Navarra and Spain

Abstract

The donation of organs and tissues is accepted in our society as a normal process; thus it frequently happens that when, in the face of imminent death, we inform the family of the severity of the patient in an intensive care unit, they offer us the organs and/or tissues before they are even asked. That is to say that in our milieu the degree of awareness and generosity is very high. As a sort of magic figure, three historic events occurred at the end of 2005: on the one hand, Spain exceeded the figure of 35 donations per million – a world record; on the other hand, we obtained the lowest figure of family refusals in history, that is, we are now below 16 per million, which is also a magic figure that is unique in the world; and, besides, we exceeded the figure of 1,500 donations in one year. The experience of 30 years of donations and transplantations has enabled us to optimise methods and protocols and to efficiently distribute functions on the basis of specialisation. The Hospital of Navarra preferentially takes charge of the extraction of organs; the Virgen del Camino Hospital collects tissues; and the University Clinic of Navarra carries out the surgical process of the transplantion. In this article we present data on the different transplants, making continuous reference to the figures produced between the years 1995 and 2005; we refer to previous figures and we make a comparison with the rest of Spain and the world.