Just 15 Transplants in Serbia Since Beginning of Year

Hospital

Serbia is marking National Donor Day with just 15 organ transplants performed since the beginning of the year and with as many as 2,000 patients waiting for an organ "as the only cure," the Association of Transplant Patients announced on June 6, adding that the number of deceased citizens who had not lived to get a transplant was unknown.

"The situation is alarming, as proved by the fact that just 15 cadaveric transplants have been performed since the start of the year, specifically three livers, three hearts and nine kidneys. With just six donors since the beginning of the year, this devastating statistic puts us at the bottom of the European ladder," says the press release.

President of the Together for a New Life association Mladen Todic said that citizens' awareness of organ donation was very low and that people needed to be educated in order to understand that they were 20 times more likely to need an organ than to be donors.

Head of the Directorate for Biomedicine Aleksandra Vlacic said that the announced legal amendments would improve records of potential donors and recalled that at least 10 organ donors per million citizens a year needed to be secured.