Transplants

It is the decision to voluntarily, generously and altruistically help others in need. Organ and tissue transplants to sick people can improve their quality of life or allow them a second chance at life.

Tissues: corneas, blood, bone marrow, blood vessels, eyeball, skin, bones, heart valves, tendons and cartilage.

Corneas and ocular tissue: helps people suffering from serious diseases. Transplantation allows them to restore vision or prevent loss of the eyeball.

Bones and tendons: is the most commonly used tissue. This transplant prevents amputation in children or adults with cancer or who have suffered bone trauma.

In Colombia, according to Law 1805 of 2016, everyone can be an organ and tissue donor regardless of age, race, sex or religious belief. In this way, people are allowed to decide in life that, at their death, their organs and tissues serve to save or improve the lives of others. Otherwise, your relatives will be able to make that decision, when the time comes.

In the case of bone marrow transplantation, in most cases the donors are siblings, father, mother or other close relatives, as long as they are compatible with the recipient.

It is a personal decision that is made in life. You must express your desire to be a donor to your closest family and friends. They will respect and enforce your will. You can also register on the website of the National Institute of Health: www.ins.gov.co

When brain death is declared, organs and tissues can be donated or if there is a definitive stop to the heart, only tissues can be donated.

In life you can also be an organ or tissue donor to a sick relative, donating a kidney, a portion of the liver, blood or bone marrow, according to health needs.

Patients in a coma or in a vegetative state retain vital functions such as breathing, yawning, coughing or opening their eyes. However, they probably cannot move or relate to their surroundings. It is important to clarify that a person in these conditions can evolve to BRAIN DEATH.

It is when the brain suffers irreversible damage generating the definitive loss of vital functions. Blood and oxygen no longer reach the brain and organs can function artificially for a few hours. When a person is diagnosed with brain death, it means that they are clinically and legally deceased.

The allocation criteria are compatibility, clinical conditions of the recipient, and time on the waiting list. There is no distinction of age, sex, socioeconomic status or religion.

In Colombia, all people can be donors, from a child to an older adult, as long as the donation is made under the criteria established in current regulations and all the conditions of the donor are evaluated to determine which organs can actually be donated.

Immediately inform the medical personnel in charge of the health institution, so that in turn they can inform the Colombian Donation and Transplant Network or report the death and the desire to be a donor through the Free phone Line of the National Institute of Health: 01 8000 113 400.

There are two kinds of donors: living donors who can share one of your kidneys, part of your liver and bone marrow, and deceased donors who can donate organs and tissues.

No, to perform transplants you need a clinic with a large physical and technological infrastructure, and it is the Ministry of Health that empowers an entity to perform these procedures. It is impossible to do it in a place that does not have the infrastructure, technology and specialized human personnel. In addition, all equipment used for transplantation is registered and monitored. The specialists must be accredited by official institutions that monitor them in databases and define the places and institutions where a surgeon can perform transplants. Colombia has very strict legislation on the issue of donation and transplantation, since organ trafficking is considered a criminal offense, according to Law 919 of 2004

These are laboratory tests through which the degree of genetic compatibility between the organ donor and the recipients to whom it will be transplanted is determined. When a donor is presented, studies of leukocyte antigens in the blood are carried out, which are compared with those of patients on the waiting list for that organ, in this way transparency is guaranteed, since only the recipient with the highest compatibility can receive the transplant.

In bone marrow transplants, blood samples from the patient's relatives are evaluated in genetics laboratories and, depending on the result, the most appropriate donor is chosen.

The waiting list for transplants is a large registry of patients grouped according to the organ or tissue to be transplanted. This list is audited and regulated by the National Institute of Health (INS), the entity that manages the platform called RED DATA, in which the clinical data of the recipients, the clinical indication for transplantation, the evaluation of each case by a interdisciplinary group of specialists assigned to a transplant program in the different regions of the country. The monitoring of each patient is carried out through the DATA NETWORK, which operates in real time 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, recording all the activity of the donation-transplant process. This system has strict safety regulations.