Watch: How To Save A Life – Maltese Surgeon On The Invaluable Importance Of Organ Donation
If there’s one thing you can do to really help change someone’s life for the better – and potentially even save it – it’s organ donation.
In a recent interview, Maltese surgeon Dr Marc Gingell Littlejohn – who has been working as a specialised surgeon for the last 17 years – opened up about the transplant operations the islands offer… and the invaluable importance of such initiatives.
In Malta, kidney and cornea transplants are by far the most prevalent, with patients requiring lung, heart and liver transplants usually being sent abroad.
Because people can very easily lead a normal life with just one kidney and it’s the organ which can be sourced from either a living donor or a deceased one, kidney transplants are by the most common in Malta. To make the whole process even easier, a new keyhole surgery operation has been introduced to ensure a minimally invasive procedure for donors.
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“It’s a phenomenal thing to witness, a life is saved,” Dr Marc said of seeing a successful transplant come to fruition, with drastic changes in patient’s health sometimes being observed mere hours after a transplant.
And what’s more, a kidney transplant gives a patient a much longer life compared to a patient receiving dialysis.
The surgeon finished the interview by explaining how a person giving their consent to become an organ donor prior to their death makes an already delicate and difficult situation all that more smoother, helping to make the process better while making sure the medical team respects the deceased’s wishes.
If you’d like to find out more about this incredible, heroic act of selflessness, visit the transplant support group at www.transplantsupport.org.mt
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