Romanian health minister Florian Bodog said the lung transplant center at the Sfanta Maria hospital in Bucharest would not open until the ministry is sure that it can safely perform lung transplant procedures. The minister also said that no employee of the hospital has so far performed a lung transplant independently, Mediafax reports.

The lung transplant center at the Sfanta Maria hospital was inaugurated in March 2016 but no transplants have been performed there yet.

"We have this situation where we have an accredited transplant center that has never performed a transplant procedure. If I introduce it [e.n. the lung transplant center] in the national transplant program, there is a risk, while doing this procedure in the country, that we can no longer send patients abroad. So we need to look at this very carefully. At this point, we don’t have any specialist employed by this hospital who has performed a transplant independently. It is a fact I need to take into account. I am a surgeon and I know what we are talking about,” Florian Bodog said, quoted by Mediafax.

Some 90% of the local patients in need of a lung transplant currently undergo this procedure at the AKH clinic in Vienna, according to data from the Romanian Lung Transplant Association.

Minister Bodog also said that the center will not open until there are guarantees that it can safely perform the procedure.

“When we will be convinced that in a center in Romania transplants can safely be performed, I have no problem to open the program for that hospital. But as long as I don’t have all the elements and the National Transplant Agency ANT did not give me all the elements I required, I cannot answer this question. What I can say publicly is that I will have meetings next week with specialists in this area and we will make a decision. When the ministry will receive all the guarantees that there are no safety issues for the patient, because this is what is important for us, and that we are not endangering the option of sending patients abroad, then we will start this program,” the health minister said.

The previous health minister, Vlad Voiculescu, decided not to start the activity at the center and said last year that there were suspicions that the Sfanta Maria lung transplant center had been accredited after political pressures, Agerpres reported. Former minister Voiculescu explained at the time it was not normal for a transplant center to receive accreditation if it cannot care for the patient after the surgery.

After the Sfanta Maria center was accredited, the hospital realized it could not take care of patients after the transplant procedure as it did not have a pulmonology department, the former minister said. The establishment of such a department would be essential in the post-surgery follow-up of the patient.

Voiculescu also explained last year that a lung transplant procedure in Vienna cost EUR 120,000, including the flight, while the first reimbursement requests from Sfanta Maria stood at EUR 110,000 – EUR 120,000, Agerpres reported. After asking for an explanation for the costs, the minister received new figures, with transplant costs of EUR 80,000, according to the same source.

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editor@romania-insider.com