Almost 8,500 people are waiting for transplants in Italy, and the sector is in difficulty by the pandemic, which has put intensive care under pressure.
This is the main message of the Ministry of Health and the National Transplant Center on the occasion of the 24th National Day of Organ and Tissue Donation, which occurs on 11 April, with the aim of raising awareness on an issue that still suffers a lot of misinformation.
"At a time when the pandemic is making the work of intensive care units much more complicated - underlines a note from the CNT - the consent of citizens to the donation becomes even more fundamental. To date, almost 9 and a half million declarations of intent have been registered in the Transplant information system, of which 7 million 'yes' and 2 and a half million 'no': the opposition is still very high, and in the first 3 months of the year, compared to 628 thousand new declarations collected by the municipal registries at the moment of the renewal of the identity card, the 'no' were as many as 200 thousand, 33.2% ".
Information is the key to reducing denials, which are often caused by poor knowledge of the topic, prejudices and real fake news.
For this reason, the new national campaign "Donating is a natural choice" was launched, based on the 'Sceglididonare.it' website.
Organ donation costs nothing, it is the key message, given that it occurs after death, and that it can save the lives of up to seven people in need of a transplant.