In 2023, six out of 10 donors were men and the maximum age for a donor was 86 years old, revealed data by the Gabinete Coodenador de Colheita e Transplantação (GCCT) of the ULS’s of São José, which includes the São José hospitals, Curry Cabral, Santa Marta, Capuchos, D. Estefânia and Maternidade Alfredo da Costa.

In accordance with the data, the Hospital of Santa Marta performed nine heart transplants and 88 lung transplants.

At Hospital Curry Cabral, 118 liver transplants, 87 kidney transplants and 17 pancreas transplants were executed, and at Hospital São José, 170 cornea transplants were performed.

The director of GCCT, Fernando Rodrigues, disclosed that some of the organs that were evaluated and transplanted came from sources outside the network of the ULS’s of São José.

“The Hospital de Santa Marta unit responds to all lung transplant candidates in the country. Thus, when there are lung donors at hospitals in other national networks, evaluations are carried out by us”, he explained.

Regarding lung transplants, the director of the GCCT stated that all transplant recipients received both lungs, with an increase in donees from 35 in 2022 to 44 in 2023.

Fernando Rodrigues noted the Portuguese legislation allows “altruistic donation” in which the donor is unaware of who will receive the organ and there have been two of those cases so far.

The ULS São José is the only institution which includes transplant units for all solid organs and where tissue collection and application is carried out. The tissues that are collected are used, for example, for procedures in the burns unit, which uses cadaver skin or amniotic membrane, extracted from the donation of placentas from pregnant women, who undergo a scheduled caesarean section, a type of donation that exists at the Maternidade Alfredo Costa.

At Hospital dos Capuchos, hematopoietic cell transplants are performed in cases of blood tumours.

“At the Unidade Local de Saúde São José, we try to offer a wide range of care for patients in need of donations in all areas of transplantation”, concluded the person in charge.

However, for every organ there is a transplant waiting list, which stands at more than 2,200 patients.