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There have been many cases in which organs from people who were declared brain dead were offered to other patients, but the transplant operations were not performed due to the circumstances of the relevant hospitals.
It must be said this not only fails to utilize the goodwill of the donors, but it is also terrible for the patients waiting for transplants. The government must take urgent action.
Reports by The Yomiuri Shimbun have revealed that hospitals connected with the University of Tokyo, Kyoto University and Tohoku University have repeatedly declined organs for transplants due to inadequacies in the hospitals’ systems, such as all the beds being occupied in intensive-care units and shortages of personnel.
In response, the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry conducted the first nationwide survey of the situation. It was consequently found that in the past year, a total of 25 hospitals, including those three university hospitals, had not performed transplant surgeries because they were not ready to accept the organs involved.
Because of this, about 500 patients were unable to receive transplants, according to the survey.
It is problematic for it to become the norm that transplants are not performed due to inadequate systems. The goodwill of donors and their families must not be disregarded. It is necessary to identify problems related to transplants and make improvements.
In South Korea, there are hospitals with ICUs dedicated to organ transplants, but there are no such facilities in Japan. Many South Korean doctors have learned transplant techniques from Japanese doctors, but organ transplants from brain-dead donors are now more common in South Korea than in Japan.
Even if it is difficult to establish such a system in Japan immediately, cooperation among hospitals that engage in organ transplants should be possible.
It is advisable to create a system in which multiple hospitals share information on patients awaiting transplants, and when a donor is found, they could complement each other through such means as sharing their available operating rooms or dispatching medical personnel.
The government may have been so focused on increasing the number of donors, even slightly, that it has not done enough to improve the system for transplants. In the future, it will be essential to support the expansion of the medical system for transplants.
Last year, the number of brain-dead donors in Japan reached a record high of 132. In contrast, there are currently more than 16,000 patients waiting for transplants. Many people have been waiting for years for a transplant opportunity, and many patients have died while on the waiting list.
Because of the difficulty of receiving organ transplants in Japan, there is no end to the number of people who travel abroad to seek transplants. There was even an incident in which an organization was caught taking advantage of patients’ weakness and mediating unauthorized transplants overseas.
To prevent such situations from recurring, it is hoped that both the government and medical institutions will rack their brains to fully utilize the valuable organs that are donated.
