EHLTF

The conference was organised jointly by the European Commission's Directorate-General for Health and Consumers and its Executive Agency.

On this occasion the results and success stories from the first and second Health Programmes were presented. The conference was also an opportunity to share views and build consensus for the future third programme.

More than 400 people have participated in the conference, including policy makers, key actors from the health sector, NGOs, Patient Groups, Member States and European institutions, health programmes' beneficiaries, scientists and academics from EU and third countries, participating in the Health Programme.

Brendan Gilligan, President of the Irish Heart and Lung Transplant Association and EHLTF Managing Committee member, attended this conference.

Here are his report and observations:

This conference was attended by 450 delegates from across Europe and the first hour or so was an overview of the success of the European Health Programmes. Among the speakers was a young lady from Italy who was a Double Lung Recipient who gave a good insight into her experience of undergoing a double lung transplant.

It was also mentioned that the first two periods of the Health Programme 2003 -2008 ( Budget 312 million Euros) and 2009-2013 (Budget321 million Euros) have been an outstanding success in both cross border facilitation of Organ Procurement and Transplantation and in other areas of medicine and health care. The proposed budget for the third period 2014 -2020 is 461 Million Euros.
I then attended a workshop (Improving citizens' health safety and quality of organs, substances of human origin and blood). This was of interest to 46 of the delegates and there were some interesting topics covered by the 4 speakers present.
Wim de Kort (Sanquin Blood Supply, The Netherlands) spoke of the need to create a safe and sufficient Blood Supply through good donor management practice across Europe.
Allesandro Nanni Costa (National Transplant Centre Italy) spoke of the continuing need for training and the upkeep of standards in relation to the inspection of Tissue establishments across Europe.
Prof. Deirdre Fehily(National Transplant Centre Italy) spoke of her work in exploring biovigilance notification for Organs , Tissues and Cells, she addressed the risks that are inherent in the use of substances of human origin and the huge volume of work that is being done across Europe in the prevention of contamination of organs pre transplant. Prof Fehily stressed the necessity of trust of the public for successful donation programmes
particularly needed for organ transplant where demand is increasing and supply scarce.
Aire Oosterlee (Eurotransplant international Foundation) spoke of the continuing shortage of Organs across Europe, the need for continuing public awareness of organ donation and the search for new ways of informing the public of the acute need for organ donation.

All in all, this conference was well worth attending and the volume of work, research and knowledge that is being done across Europe in many different areas of medicine has to be good long term not only for us recipients but for future patients and recipients too.