The case of a young Romanian who passed away waiting for a lung transplant brought back to public attention the discussion surrounding the options of local transplant patients.

Călin Farcaş, who had been waiting for a lung transplant for more than two years, passed away during the night of July 2 at the Marius Nasta Institute in Bucharest. He was 29 years old and was suffering from pulmonary hypertension.

The first lung transplant in Romania was performed only this April, at the Sfanta Maria Hospital in Bucharest.

In April, Farcaş organized a protest in front of the County Hospital in Braşov, in central Romania, in order to raise awareness of his case. He also opened a donation page on Facebook and managed to raise EUR 200,000 in just a few days. Last month, Farcaş announced he had found a clinic in India that would perform the transplant.

In a recent Facebook post, presented by Stirileprotv.ro, Farcaş describes his struggle to get the transplant done and how his only barrier was an agreement with a clinic in Europe where he could undergo the procedure.

“I don’t have the strength to fight the state anymore, although the only barrier I have is an agreement with a clinic in Europe that could save me. It is extremely frustrating and humiliating what I have to undergo; if I had been a citizen of any state in Europe I would have been saved by now, there was no need for such suffering and despair,” he wrote in the message.

Reacting to the case, health minister Sorina Pintea said it was hard to say why the young man died. She said she was not aware of the clinic in India but that Farcaş had the approval to undergo a lung transplant abroad.

“Romania has a valid protocol with the Eurotransplant. Romania even gave two lungs to Eurotransplant because they were not compatible with the patients on the local lists. We have an order that says that patients who cannot undergo a transplant in Romania because of complications can undergo the procedure abroad. From the information I have, Călin Farcaş was evaluated last week at the Sf. Maria Hospital and was given the approval for a transplant abroad. He was given the transplant approval for the Eurotransplant countries with which Romania has a protocol and to which Romania donates organs. […] Unfortunately, it was too late for him,” Pintea told Digi24.

The Sfanta Maria hospital was accredited as a transplant center in 2016. However, Vlad Voiculescu, the health minister at that time, asked for an investigation at the center, arguing that there were suspicions that the center had been accredited on political pressure.

In March 2017, former health minister Florian Bodog said the lung transplant center at the Sfanta Maria hospital would not open until the ministry is sure that it can safely perform lung transplant procedures. Then, a few days later, he announced that Romanian patients could no longer undergo lung transplants at the AKH hospital in Vienna as the institution “unilaterally annulled” the contract based on which these surgeries were performed. Most Romanians in need of a lung transplant were undergoing this surgery at the Vienna hospital as the procedure couldn’t be performed in Romania.

Controversies surrounding the first lung transplant in Romania

editor@romania-insider.com