Sir, – Your report on the recent study showing that heart and lung transplant rates in Ireland remain below pre-pandemic levels more than six years after the onset of Covid-19 highlighted a matter of profound importance for patients with advanced lung disease.
Transplantation is often the only life-extending treatment available, yet lung transplantation has been among the slowest areas of transplant medicine to recover since the pandemic. Continued low transplant activity raises serious concerns about whether our system has the capacity to meet current and future needs.
Organ donors and their families provide an extraordinary gift of life. Every transplant begins with a selfless act at a time of great personal loss.
We owe donors and their loved ones a profound debt of gratitude. The best way to honour that gift is to ensure our transplant system is equipped to make the fullest possible use of every opportunity to save lives. Your article highlights that we are falling far short of that goal.
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While Ireland is fortunate to have highly skilled transplant clinicians, co-ordinators and intensive care teams whose dedication deserves recognition, expertise alone is not enough.
The Department of Health, Organ Donation & Transplant Ireland and the HSE need to address the deficits in transplant and critical care capacity, improve donor identification and retrieval systems, and provide greater transparency around waiting-list activity and outcomes.
Ireland is now lagging behind many of its EU counterparts, and we urgently need a clear plan to restore transplant numbers to at least pre-pandemic levels.
Many patients on transplant waiting lists haven’t the time to wait. This study should serve as a wake-up call. Ireland has the expertise, public support and clinical leadership needed to improve outcomes. What is required now is urgency, commitment and action. – Yours, etc,
MAUREEN O’DONNELL
Chief executive officer,
Irish Lung Fibrosis Association,
Dublin 2.
