Romania’s only lung transplant center can be included in national transplant program

The Bucharest hospital Sf. Maria, which hosts the country’s only lung transplant center, can be included in the national transplant program, Radu Deac, the Romanian Transplant Agency (ANT) president said, quoted by News.ro. An evaluation was performed this Wednesday, revealing that the conditions for which the center received an accreditation last year are maintained. The announcement comes only days after the Vienna clinic AKH, the hospital where most Romanian cases were referred to for lack of a local alternative, announced it could no longer accept patients coming from Romania. Last week, Romania's health minister Florian Bodog had said the lung transplant center at the Sf. Maria hospital would not open until the ministry was sure that it could safely perform lung transplant procedures. Radu Deac said that doctor Igor Tudorache, a Romanian physician who performs this kind of procedures in Hanover, Germany, agreed to come to the center to operate. Minister Bodog previously said that no member of the staff at Sf. Maria hospital had performed the procedure before. The ANT also sent a letter to Eurotransplant to settle some of the contracts that expired and which allowed Romanian patients to undergo the procedure at hospitals abroad. The lung transplant center at the Sf. Maria hospital received its accreditation last year but no such procedure has been performed so far. The former health minister, Vlad Voiculescu, asked last year for an investigation into how the center received the credentials. Several audits revealed that the Sf. Maria hospital lacked a specialized laboratory, a doctor specializing in infectious diseases, and insufficient disinfection points, Digi24 reported. editor@romania-insider.com