Organ procurement: experience from a southern Italian region

The authors report their experience of organ procurement during the last 5 years to evaluate a program that began in 1988 to improve organ retrieval in Calabria. In this region only two donations were reported up to 1988, one each in 1980 and 1985. Because of the large population on dialysis and the willingness of a group of surgeons and anesthesiologists, this program was undertaken in 1988 under the supervision of C.C.S.T. (Co-ordination of Centre and South Italy for Transplantation). This program was designed to act on two levels: to create a large group of people directly involved in health care (physicians and nurses) motivated in organ procurement and transplantation, and to diffuse the "culture" of organ donation among lay people. This was achieved by means of scientific meetings inside the hospital and with conventions and TV programs, supported by an Association of Volunteers, where ethical and scientific problems of organ donation and transplantation were discussed in simple language. Various meetings were also held with high school students. During these meetings a questionnaire was distributed among students. Results of this questionnaire show that the main obstacles to organ donation are the "unclear" concept of "brain death" and religious feelings, but after the concept of brain death was explained, a significant number of students showed a different attitude toward organ procurement and transplantation. Results of this program are extremely encouraging (23 organ donations during the last 3 years). We hope to improve our results in the near future, and we do believe that a further and significant increase to our preliminary good results could be achieved by the possibility of performing at least kidney transplantation in our institution.