“A life lost can save many other people,” says Santa Catarina, who received a heart.

The fact that caller Fausto Silva, Faustão, entered the SUS queue for a heart transplant highlights a topic for which Santa Catarina is a national reference and internationally recognized: organ transplantation. Faustão, who is hospitalized in Sao Paulo, is part of a waiting list that can be up to 540 days, while the average waiting time here is 3.8 months.

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In 2021, the Brazilian Transplantation Society recognized South Carolina as the state with the highest number of effective organ donations for transplants. According to data from the Brazilian Organ Transplant Registry, the state topped the list with a rate of 40.5 organ donors per million inhabitants.

With regard to waiting lines, according to data from the Brazilian Association of Aragos cultivation (ABTO), the state of São Paulo, where Faustau was hospitalizedIt has the longest waiting list in the country. The next state on the list is Minas Gerais, followed by Rio de Janeiro. Santa Catarina has only one person waiting for a heart transplant.

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According to Joel de Andrade, coordinating physician at SC Transplantes, Santa Catarina has historically had a small waiting list. He points out that the criteria for accepting heart donors are usually more restrictive:

— If you take 100 donors, about 80 to 90 people will be able to donate kidneys and livers, but the number of donations for heart transplants will be more restricted — and he assesses this, noting that in the case of elderly donors, for example, the heart is not always exploitable.

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On the other hand, there is a large number of donated hearts in Santa Catarina that help patients from other neighboring states, such as Rio Grande do Sul, Paraná and even São Paulo. According to the doctor, until July of this year, 20 donor hearts had been collected, and 16 of them were sent to other states.

Donations that save lives

In Santa Catarina, 56 heart transplants were performed from 2000 to 2023. Among the surgeries was Arlene Martins, 62. She has a B negative blood type and had to stay in the hospital for five and a half months waiting for a transplant. He spent part of that time in a machine-assisted intensive care unit. After being diagnosed with heart disease, she says, the biggest delay was actually being put on the waiting list for the organ, in September 2018:

– They said that few people have my blood type, that size is also important, and it was hard.

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However, after being able to join the queue, it only took a month for the matching heart to appear:

The doctor used to say to me: “You were a miracle. “What saved you was your patience,” says Arlene.

A resident of Jaraguá do Sul stresses the importance of organ donation:

— It’s a blessing, and we can only thank those who have become aware and have chosen to donate their organs.

Public health efforts to save lives through transplantation have not been in vain. Nelson Stanke, 53, from Blumenau, lives thanks to a new heart:

She had two heart attacks, in 2009 and 2010. My condition stabilized with medication, until 2019, when my life no longer aligned with my heart. “I began to live day by day,” Stanky recalls.

After a series of tests at Santa Isabel Hospital, he entered the waiting list. Between June and July 2020, two donors emerged, but due to pneumonia issues, the transplant surgery was not approved. On October 13, 2020, Stanky received the news that he had a donor, and the next day he performed the transplant.

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He remembers that the surgery and recovery were uneventful, and that 20 days after the procedure he was home. Today, Stanky is living the good life, and is grateful to the benefactor’s family:

— I’m only alive because my family, even in mourning, has been kind enough to make a donation. I will forever be grateful to the donor. A lost life could save many others – he says, moved.

Donation amount

Like Faustao, Odeler Comerlato, 53, suffered from heart failure and needed a heart transplant. The Santa Catarina native from Friburgo had to wait 14 months on a waiting list for the surgery. He has a B negative blood type, which makes the search for a compatible member even more difficult.

While awaiting the transplant, Comerlato and his family moved from the state’s Midwest to Indayal, closer to Blumenau, where Santa Isabel Hospital is located, the only hospital in the state that performs the surgery.

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The man from Santa Catarina has been a transplant for five years and says he no longer feels any symptoms of the disease. He and his family are back in Freiburgo, and they are living their lives normally. Currently, the routine frequency of appointments for examining a member’s behavior is every four or five months.

Comerlato confirms how grateful he is to the donor:

— The day after surgery, my family went after his family. He was 33 and lived in the same neighborhood as me. “To this day, I visit his mother,” he says.

To be an organ donor in Brazil, the first step is to talk to your family and make sure they know you want to. This is because, according to Brazilian legislation, postmortem transplants can only be performed if there is permission from family members.

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The death of a family member is a difficult time for the whole family. However, it is precisely in this period of mourning that pain can become a sign of hope, providing the opportunity to give a new lease of life to people waiting in line for organ or tissue transplants. Lives like Arlene, Nelson, and Odeler have been saved thanks to the care of those who have chosen to be donors.

*With information from Jean Lourendo.
** Maria is a trainee and works under Everton Seaman

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