Presentation of the Onassis National Transplant Center
A health project on a national scale from the Onassis Foundation
Greece acquires its own national transplant center. The vision of an Onassis National Transplant Center is now a reality.
Photo: Mike Tsolis
For his part, the President of the Onassis Cardiac Surgery Center, Mr Dimitris Niakas, noted the positive impact the creation of the new hospital will have on his own hospital: “The creation of a new hospital, the Onassis National Transplant Center, will help further upgrade and evolve the services provided by the Onassis Cardiac Surgery Center, allowing it to remain at the cutting edge of developments and innovation in the field of cardiology and heart surgery."
The project was embraced from the start by the President of the National Transplant Organization, Mr Andreas Karabinis, who stressed the project's importance for the Greek transplant sector: “The National Transplant Organization welcomes the Onassis Foundation's initiative to create and donate a state-of the-art national transplant center to Greek society in order to fill the gap in the health services and infrastructure available in the sphere of organ transplants. In parallel, we have also designed a series of actions which we will be jointly implementing with the Onassis Foundation to raise awareness and knowledge of the crucial issue of organ donations, both within the medical community and in Greek society at large." It should be noted that the Onassis National Transplant Center will also house the new headquarters of the NTO, which will in itself help the Greek transplant sector operate as efficiently and flexibly as possible.
The second part of the event did not feature speeches, but rather a vigorous debate in which Popi Tsapanidou posed questions to a fascinating panel composed of Antonis Papadimitriou, President of the Onassis Foundation, Panos Minogiannis, General Manager of the Onassis Cardiac Surgery Center, Andreas Karabinis, President of the National Transplant Organisation, and Iraklis Tsangaris, Associate Professor of Intensive Care Medicine who is currently training to perform lung transplants through the Onassis Foundation scholarship programme.
The event also featured interventions in the form of live video link-ups and recordings, including statements from the world's leading Cardiothoracic Surgeon, Mr Walter Klepetko, which will be participating in the lung transplant training program for Greek doctors; the Director of Italy's National Transplant Center, Mrs Nanni Costa; and Ms Anna Mariola, head of Air Distribution for the Greek National First Aid Centre.
The presentation's endnote, which was provided by Zoi Kostaridi, the first Greek transplant patient to go on to become a mother, who was physically present at the event, added a singularly human note to proceedings.
Greece is in need of an immediate reboot in the transplants sphere
The creation of the Onassis National Transplant Center will fill a large gap in Greek health provision. The lack of suitable infrastructure, the limited number of qualified medical personnel, and the lack of public confidence in the health system, which impacts negatively on organ donations, all serve to keep transplantation activity in Greece at very low levels.
According to NTO data, Greece is in last place in Europe in the field of transplantations, and in the bottom ten countries in the Western world. For instance, in 2016, only 151 transplants took place in Greece, compared with 1,032 and 846 respectively in Belgium and Portugal, European countries with populations of roughly the same size. Between 2013 and 2017, a total of 260 Greeks travelled abroad to hospitals around Europe for solid organ transplants. In the same period, the NTO data shows that 696 transplant recipients travelled abroad for post-operative examinations, which imposes a huge psychological cost on the patients and their families, but also an economic burden on the State.
A gift of life
The ONTRC is expected to serve as a catalyst which will energize the transplant sector in Greece by working with existing transplant units. Its active presence will lead to the creation of a nationwide network coordinated by the NTO, and hence to an increase both in the number of transplants performed and in their effectiveness. This will lay the foundations for a more effective management of transplant needs in the future. At the same time, the founding of the ONTRC also ensures the conditions required to provide the sort of integrated transplant care which takes into account the person in the patient.
The Onassis Pediatric Unit: relief for child patients and their families
Within the ONTRC, the Onassis Pediatric Unit, the first autonomous transplant unit in Greece exclusively for children, will provide children with specialized, high-level transplant and heart surgery services as well as bringing much-needed relief to their parents.
Drastic reduction in patients travelling abroad for treatment
The new facilities and services provided by the ONTRC, combined with the boosting of the Greek organ donation culture, the development of medical know-how in transplantation surgery and the increased numbers of certified medical staff, should reduce the huge numbers of patients travelling abroad for treatment and eliminate the phenomenon entirely in the long term. The creation of the ONTRC will serve as a catalyst for the further development of the transplantation sector in Greece. This will primarily benefit patients, as solid organ transplants will now take place in Greece which would have been impossible without the ONTRC.
A hospital for everyone
The Onassis National Transplant Center (ONTRC) will operate as a legal entity governed by Private Law, a general government body with administrative and financial autonomy under the supervision of the Hellenic Minister of Health. It will provide public access to services in accordance with the model employed by Europe's finest hospitals. On the completion of its construction phase, the ONTRC will be donated to Greek society by the Onassis Foundation. The patient receiving the transplant will not be charged at any stage during the transplant process, even if they are uninsured.
Reduction in Health costs
By adopting the standards applied in centers of organ transplant excellence in Europe and the US, the ONTRC is expected to bring about a major reduction both in the social cost of the hardships suffered by Greek transplant patients and their families and in the financial cost of organ transplants to the health system. Reducing the need to travel abroad for transplant surgery will mean significant savings for the Greek National Health Service.
Increase in transplant activity from the first five years
According to the NTO, the creation of the Onassis National Transplant Center with its state-of-the-art facilities, specialist staff and cutting-edge technology will contribute to the creation of a nationwide transplant network while simultaneously boosting the organ donation movement, thereby allowing Greece to achieve a level of transplants more than half that of the average in other European countries with a comparable population size from its first five years in operation.
National Center of Excellence and Medical Innovation
The ONTRC will join forces with the ONTRC with a view to developing into an international center of medical innovation in transplantation, cardiology and heart surgery for adults and children. Making full use of the OCSC's quarter century in operation and its collaboration with the NTO, the ONTRC will set about forging international collaborations in the sphere of transplants which will facilitate the sharing of medical expertise and the international exchange of scientific approaches and techniques. It will also collaborate with universities and research centers in Greece and abroad as well as with the Biomedical Research Foundation of the Academy of Athens with a view to driving transplant research. [ME1]Networking and Continuing Professional Development for medical and nursing staff is a prerequisite for the ongoing upgrade of the services they provide.
The ONTRC will pave the way for leading doctors to work in Greece, collaborating with Greek doctors, promoting the scientific discourse on new developments in transplantation surgery, and facilitating the passing on of know-how which is currently lacking in the transplant sector in Greece. At the same time, via an Onassis Foundation scholarship programme, Greek doctors are already receiving further training in specialized clinics around Europe, where they will acquire the specializations and certifications they require to return to Greece ready to undertake transplant operations.
A new impetus in organ donation
Developing and strengthening a culture of organ donation is a prerequisite for a new and more effective national transplantation strategy. The Onassis Foundation, in cooperation with the National Transplant Organization and the Hellenic Ministry of Health, will be investing resources in activities that will both effectively promote the national transplant and organ donation strategy in Greece and raise the level of education in relation to transplants.