Deceased Donation Data from a State Hospital in Turkey

Abstract

Introduction The shortage of organs for transplant is a universal problem. Deceased donation after brain death has a great importance. The aim of this report is to present the experience of our centre. Materials and methods The analysis was created by investing the archive documents of our hospital between 2007 which a donation unit was established and 2016. Results Documented brain death reports in our hospital were in order between 2007‐2016 0-0-0-5-7-11-13-7-12-14. Deceased organ donation in these years were 0-0-0-0-3-8-5-2-3-7. Intensive care unit specialists monitorized 1801 patient in year 2016. Our donation unit diagnosed 14 brain death in 2016 and 7 of them reached being organ donors. Twelve kidneys, six livers and two hearts were transferred and transplanted to recipients in territory centers. Discussion Balikesir Atatürk State Hospital is a government hospital running as one of three in a city which the population is consisting of three hundred thousand people. Before 2007 no donation program has been run and there was no deceased organ donation. After constructing an organ donation unit by highly educated coordinators the awareness of donation was improved. The organ transplant coordinators were frontiers for close monitoring the potential pre-brain death patients and education. Besides this, increasing number of help provided patients and increasing numbers of health care professionals in intensive care unit; after 2007, increased the numbers of deceased donors, despite not being a transplantation center. Under the administration of organ transplant coordinators, awareness of diagnosing brain death by health professionals, awareness of patient relatives about organ donation and education about organ donation globally helped to increase these numbers too. However, in our country there are still high concerns about deceased organ donation consisting of religious doubts and fear of body distortion. Conclusion We believe that education for awareness of donation to citizens, awareness of brain death and education of health care professionals for a caring conversation for donating will much more increase the number of deceased organ donation.