Spain smashes transplant record with 94 operations in three days

"It was like breaking the record three days in a row," said the director of the National Transplants Organization (ONT), Rafael Matesanz after a frantic 72 hours witnessed 94 transplants take place in 42 hospitals across 14 of Spain's 17 regions and neighboring Portugal.

In total, 93 patients received new organs from 39 donors, with one undergoing a double lung and heart transplant. The operations were coordinated on November 23, 24 and 25, smashing the previous record for this kind of intervention of 32 in a single day.

Among the procedures were 48 kidney transplants - the easiest to perform - 23 liver, eight lung (four of which were double transplants), six heart, three pancreas and one intestinal replacement. Two of the recipients were in the extreme urgency category, "which means if they had not received an organ they could have died within 24 to 48 hours," explained the Health Ministry in a statement.

The director of the ONT noted that "the system functions well and citizens, as we have seen, are still responding. It is a sign of the solidity of the organization."

A manual written by the ONT's good practices commission "has been translated into every language in the world and everybody has copied it," added Matesanz.

Even the general staff of the Spanish Air Force was called upon for assistance on six occasions during the period, either to transfer organs or to open military airports to the ONT. "The nurses, who coordinate the entire process, put in double and triple shifts," said Matesanz.

Among the donors were two non-Spanish nationals, and only two had been the victims of road traffic accidents. In 1992, the number of donors from road and other accidents was 42 percent, a figure that Matesanz said would fall to "three or four percent" this year as road safety improves. The overall panorama for donations is also falling. Last year, Spain had the highest number of donors per capita in the world but the total figure - 32 per million inhabitants, double the EU average - had fallen from a peak of 34 per million inhabitants.

However, Matesanz is optimistic that the ONT can continue in a similar vein of success: "A while ago it looked as though this year we would increase our activity by eight percent, but with the latest data I think we could reach 10 percent."