“The State Transplant Center of Yucatan (Ceetry) will seek to maintain productivity in terms of donation and transplants”, said its director, Dr. Jorge Martínez Ulloa, who was ratified in his position during the new state administration.
“We want to continue growing, we need to consolidate the liver transplant program, we need to start a heart transplant program in Yucatan, and also encourage the neighboring states, Quintana Roo and Campeche, with which we have worked very closely and that have already started to promote organ donation, “he said.
He pointed out that all the states of the southeast of the country need to join and the network of procurement and designation of organs and tissues must continue growing.
Bioethics
On how to avoid influence peddling in the list of patients waiting for an organ, the doctor indicated that precisely on September 16, the National Transplant Center signed an agreement with the federal Bioethics Institute.
“Something that has been pointed out and that is in the regulations of the Health Law, in the matter of organ transplants, is that you have to involve the Bioethics Committee within the Transplant Committee, with at least some representative so that monitoring, transparency and equity, are properly carried out during each and every organ donation, “he said.
He pointed out that it is very important to know that the waiting list order is not the only criterion to assign an organ to a receiver, but other factors need to be taken into consideration, such as: opportunity, age, logistics or geagraphic location, just to name a few.
The opportunity of each particular case has much to do with the issue of transplant logistics. In Mexico and the rest of the world, priority is given to children and young people. This means that if a patient who has just entered the waiting list, is 16 years old, he/she could be the first to receive the organ.
The director of Ceetry indicated that decisions are not taken by one single doctor, at least in Yucatan, there is a Transplant Committee, where they are responsible for the analysis of each and every organ donated, kidney, liver, cornea, the Blood Bank, etc.; there is always a psychiatrist or a psychologist in the Committee, representatives of the Committee of Bioethics, Legal representatives too. The decision is taken after a thourough evaluation by all members of the committee.
He stressed that Bioethics has the concept, in the matter of transplants, to treat and act with dignity, transparency and without any conflict of interest, so that the recipients feel confident, and the transplant is done in the best terms.
Martínez Ulloa exemplified ethics with another case: “If we have a 75-year-old donor, you will not give that kidney to a 16-year-old child, we will let the younger patients go and the recipient will be a person of that age, because he/she has the same life expectancies.”
He commented that sometimes people decide to be donors, but at the time of death, the family does not accept that decision. However, 70% of the cases are in favor of donation.
“If one approaches the family in the proper way and explains the final destination of the organs, respecting the grief they are experiencing, almost always the family says yes,” Martínez Ulloa explained.
“But if there is someone in the family who does not agree, they prefer not to carry out the donation, we believe that this process should help the family, to cope with grief, but if there is going to be a family conflict, we prefer not to proceed with the donation procedure,” he continued.
The director of Ceetry said that so far there has been no need to reach a litigation in any case. “We, who carry out this process are doctors and finally what we want is to help people, and we understand the pain and sorrow that families go through when they lose a close relative, and we respect their grief,” he continued.
“The ideal donors are young and healthy people, who die in traffic or other kind of accidents. these are unexpected deaths, that is why we understand the pain of the family, so in these cases we do not push, on the contrary, if they do not want to go ahead with the donation process, we respect their decision”, the State Transplant Center of Yucatan Director, Dr. Jorge Martínez Ulloa concluded.
TYT Newsroom with information from:
