18/03/2016
After just over two years, the “Strengthening the Transplant Agency of the Republic of Moldova” project, managed by FIIAPP with European funding and the collaboration of experts from the OCATT, is coming to an end.
Laboratory in a Moldovan hospital.
The International and Ibero-American Foundation for Administration and Public Policies (FIIAPP) has been jointly managing this project with France for more than two years. The project is financed by the European Commission, and experts from the Catalan Transplant Organisation (OCATT) have been working to ensure that Moldovan citizens have access to donation and transplant treatments, following the model used in Spain, a world leader thanks to its innovative system for managing communication and transport of organs.
The project, which has just ended, was financed by the European Commission with a grant of over €1 million and was focused on implementing in Moldova an effective and safe organ transplant system and adapting Moldovan laws to the European framework.
Experts from Spain’s OCATT, in collaboration with French experts from the Biomedicine Agency have trained over 200 workers in the Moldovan healthcare system on how to reproduce the Spanish transplant model in their country. Jaume Tort, Director of the OCATT, explains that “in Moldova, doctors are now much more connected to the team that participates in the transplants. The Moldovan specialists, on their visits to Spain, were able to see teamwork in action, how decisions are taken jointly, and how everyone on the transplant team takes part in meetings.”
Over the duration of the project in Moldova, 22 kidney transplants and 15 liver transplants were performed and the practice of organ transplantation became normalised in the country. Patricia Sánchez, the FIIAPP expert in Moldova, an intensive care doctor and transplant coordinator, stressed that before the project “donation and transplants were not looked upon favourably, but this is changing very rapidly, we have noted great progress in these past two years. Before the project, we had several hundred people on the waiting list to receive different types of organs, and there were people who were dying because the treatment was not available in the country.”
Furthermore, during the project a communication campaign was carried out to improve the image of donation in the country and make the Moldovan people aware that transplants can save lives.
