Despite the positive momentum after two years weighed down by the health crisis, the number of organ transplants in France has yet to return to pre-COVID-19 levels in 2022, the Biomedicine Agency said Tuesday. And this while more and more French people need a transplant, with 20,000 people on the waiting list, active or inactive.
“The number of transplants reached in 2022 is encouraging, given the difficult situation that certain health establishments are experiencing in France,” said François Kerbaul, director of organ and tissue removal and transplantation at the biomedicine agency, when welcoming during a conference press. .
Although he specifies that “all the effort made (…) will not allow the objectives set by the Transplant Plan and linked to the expectations of the patients to be achieved, if the hospital situation does not improve”.
21 new subscribers every day
In detail, in 2022, 5,494 transplants were performed, compared to 5,276 in 2021. However, in 2018-2019 this figure rose to an average of 5,903 transplants. The hospital system is not up to the demand: there are 21 new entries per day on the list of transplant applicants, compared to 15 daily operations.
On a case-by-case basis, kidney transplants are the most affected, since they are the most practiced in France. Between 2018 and 2019, approximately 3,643 were performed. A number that fell to 2,595 at the height of the Covid-19 crisis, before rising to 3,376 in 2022. But neither heart, liver, lung or pancreas transplants have returned to their pre-Covid levels.
However, the Biomedicine Agency wishes to point out that donations have increased between 2021 and 2022. +4.8% in brain-dead patients, and +5% in all deceased donors, with a total of 1,694 donors collected . And for 2023, the Biomedicine Agency evokes a “positive trend that is confirmed”.
relatives in the dark
The publication of these figures comes at a time when a 2022-2026 ministerial action plan regarding organ transplantation has been decreed. Thus, an additional financing of 210 million euros was decided.
“Which will bring the national effort to more than 2,000 million euros, for the benefit of organ and tissue extraction and transplantation activities during the duration of the plan,” underlines the Biomedicine Agency in a press release.
But in addition to the financial means, efforts remain to be made on the side of the population. 54% of the French say they are concerned about organ donation, reports the Biomedicine Agency, a figure that “has stagnated for some years”. Only 47% of the French have talked about it with their relatives.
“In one out of every two cases, the relatives are therefore unable to decide on a possible opposition of the deceased,” laments the Biomedicine Agency.
Source: BFM TV
