An organ transplant "harvesting" team flew to Cyprus on the eve of Remembrance Day to collect a liver that was not needed there.
A few hours before the beginning of Remembrance Day, the Israel Transplant coordinating center received a call from the transplant coordinator in Cyprus that there was a donor and that Cyprus was willing to give Israel the liver if an Israeli team were ready to come and get it. Hadassah said it had a tissue-compatible 63-year-old man waiting in the queue for a donor liver.
A private airline with small jets, Monair, agreed to fly the team, which brought along a cooler with ice and special solutions to preserve organs.
When the team's vehicle got stuck in traffic at the Castel near Jerusalem on the way to Sde Dov Airport, the Traffic Police sent two policemen on motorcycles to clear the roads and accompany the team from Hadassah-University Medical Center to Sde Dov in time for their flight, which was specially approved by the Sde Dov manager. After collecting the liver, the team brought it back to Jerusalem in the cooler, and the operation was performed.
Cyprus surgeons transplant only kidneys and therefore did not have use for the liver. When there is a possibility of saving other organs from the same donor, the transplant coordinator there calls representatives in other countries with which it has an agreement. Greece has an agreement with Israel on hearts, while Austria has one for lungs. In the last half-year, Israel has received four organs from Cyprus, and now the Health Ministry is working to promote official cooperation between the two countries.
Four people attached to respirators and put into artificial comas are waiting for lung donations. One, age 24, is at Soroka University Medical Center in Beersheba, and three others, aged 37, 47 and 48, are at the Rabin Medical Center. Without donor lungs, their chances for survival are very low, according to Israel Transplant.
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