The SEE Regional Health Centre on Organ Donation and Transplant Medicine supports the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Serbia to improve its current state of art

Just two weeks ago a successful mission  took place in Republic of Serbia organized and conducted by the SEE Regional Health Development Centre on Organ Donation and Transplant  Medicine, designated and acting since 2011 in Zagreb, Croatia, one of the countries with best experience in the area not only in in SEE and Europe but globally.

The purpose was to support the Ministry of Health of the country to further develop its own policies, strategies and action on the subject. During the mission series of meetings and discussions were held with the Ministry of Health and other relevant national institutions in Belgrade.

Important conclusions and recommendations were provided to the Serbian Ministry of Health on the current weaknesses of the system and the areas for follow up actions and improvements. They are related to under staffing, existing knowledge and practices in the hospitals, lack of proper information system, lack of Transplant Coordination Committees in the hospitals, need of introducing accountability for organ donation performance, etc.

This successful mission follows and builds up on  a very intensive and successful SEE regional cooperation activities on Organ Donation and Transplant Medicine in 2012 when several major accomplishments happened:

• the First SEE Ministerial Conference on Organ Donation and Transplant  Medicine took place on 6th June 2012 in Zagreb, Croatia under the auspices of the President of the country;
• the first-ever successful transplantation was performed in Montenegro by a team of Croatian leading experts, lead by the Minister of Health of Croatia, as an immediate practical action of support to another SEE Health Network member country;
• series of regional workshop and training were held to improve capacities of the region in this important and very sensitive public health and health system area.