The police transported the liver for which a 49-year-old patient was waiting. The organ was collected from a donor in a Lithuanian hospital. Krzysztof Zając from the Central Clinical Hospital in Warsaw emphasizes that the patient's fate was decided by minutes.
In a published statement, the police say that an organ taken from a Lithuanian donor could be transplanted to a patient in Poland on the basis of a bilateral agreement signed last year between our country and Lithuania.
The agreement assumes that an organ for transplantation may be sent abroad if it is not possible to use it in a given country due to, among other things, the donor's rare blood type.
A 49-year-old patient with liver failure who had been on the waiting list for a month was waiting for a transplant.
An action in which every minute counted
The Polish side received information that an organ was harvested in a Lithuanian hospital, near the border with Latvia, thanks to which a patient from the province Pomorskie will have a chance to recover.
– For our patient, it was the last chance to recover – says Krzysztof Zając, transplant coordinator of the Central Clinical Hospital in Warsaw, quoted in the police statement.
The flight lasted one and a half hoursKGP
He adds that in the case of a liver transplant, it may take slightly longer from collection to transplantation than in the case of a heart.
– It takes 10 to 12 hours, but every minute that can be saved, for example during transport, counts. The more time the transplant team gets to perform the operation, the better the patient's prognosis. There is a greater chance that the transplanted organ will be accepted in the recipient's body, and we can also count on its faster recovery – explains Krzysztof Zając.
He adds that the rush is all the more necessary because the organ implantation procedure itself may take several hours.
An hour and a half in the air
Representatives of the Warsaw hospital at Banacha Street asked the police for help. The day before the planned transport, the Aviation Management Board of the Police Headquarters received a request to transport a specialized refrigerator containing the liver collected in a Lithuanian hospital.
A 49-year-old patient with liver failure was waiting for a transplantKGP
– The route that the police pilots in the Bell-407GXi helicopter had to cover led from the Polish-Lithuanian border to Warsaw. – As usual, everything was precisely coordinated – says the inspector quoted in the police statement. pil. Robert Sitek, head of the Police Aviation Directorate at the Police Headquarters.
– Before noon, the crew took off from Warsaw to the airstrip in Budzisko, from where, around 12.30 p.m., after taking the heart surgeon on board with the valuable cargo, the helicopter took off for the return journey, says the officer.
The flight lasted about 1.5 hours. Fortunately, according to the police, the action took place in good weather conditions.
Another such transport
The police report that for the second time they participated in the transport of an organ from the Polish-Lithuanian border. For the first time, kidneys were transported on board a police helicopter for two patients of the Central Clinical Hospital of the University Clinical Center of the Medical University of Warsaw.
The police report that the patient, who received a liver transplant from a Lithuanian donor, is slowly recovering and regaining full strength.
Main photo source: KGP