Every year, on the second Saturday of October, European Donation Day is marked, and according to data from the Croatian Health Ministry, from the beginning of 2024 to 1 October, there were 82 organ donors and 201 solid organ transplants in Croatia.

In the said period, there were 87 kidney, 76 liver, 27 heart, 3 lung, and 1 pancreas transplants as well as a number of multi-organ transplants (2 liver-pancreas-intestine transplants, 2 kidney-heart transplants, 1 liver-heart transplant, 1 kidney-pancreas transplant, and 1 kidney-liver transplant).

Croatia has been among the leading European countries in terms of organ donation, especially after in 2007 it joined Eurotransplant, an international non-profit organisation that coordinates the allocation and exchange of organs between member-countries based on the principle of solidarity.

The exchange and allocation of organs in Eurotransplant is based on the principle of reciprocity, which means that for patients on the waiting list, Croatia gets as many organs as it registers for donation.

“Croatia today is the leading Eurotransplant member in terms of the number of donations of organs of deceased persons, diagnosed as brain dead,” said Dr Jasna Brezak, head of the Clinical Hospital Centre Zagreb (KBC Zagreb) department for the coordination of transplantation and explantation procedures.

Organ donation by live donors accounts for only 3% of organ donations in Croatia, unlike some other countries like the Netherlands and Belgium, where that share exceeds 40%, she said.

High level of awareness of the importance of organ donation

Croatians have a high level of awareness of the importance of organ donation after death. That is owing to the country’s long transplantation tradition because last year we celebrated the 50th anniversary of organ transplantation at KBC Zagreb, Brezak said, noting that so far, more than 3,300 organ transplants had been performed at that hospital.

She underlined the importance of organ transplantation in children, with such transplants being performed only at KBC Zagreb, and noted that seven have been performed so far this year.

There are five organ transplant centres in Croatia – the KBC Zagreb hospital, the KBC Rijeka hospital, Zagreb’s clinical hospitals Merkur and Dubrava, and the KBC Osijek hospital.

As for who can be an organ donor, there is a legal provision on the presumed consent after death.

“That means that anyone of us can be an organ donor if we are diagnosed brain dead, because we know that the death of the brain means the death of a person,” Brezak said, but noted that despite the legal provision, hospital coordinators for organ transplants always contact the families of deceased persons to ask them to consider the possibility of donating the organs of their deceased family member to help save the life of a patient waiting for an organ transplant, providing them with all the relevant information.

That way, trust is gained and 79% of such conversations result with the consent of the families of the deceased patients, Brezak says.

Croatia also has a register of persons who do not wish to donate their organs after death. Around 3,000 Croatians are currently registered as non-donors, Brezak said.