Greece rapped for failing to do more to raise transplant awareness

Greece is at the bottom of the European Union scale as regards organ transplants due to a lack of public awareness and inefficient funding, experts told a press conference on Wednesday.

While the average number of organ donors in the EU is 20 per million inhabitants – with 30 donors per million in Spain, Italy and Croatia – Greece has only seven per million residents. As a result, around 50 Greeks travel abroad every year to receive organ transplants.

The head of the National Transplant Organization, Alkiviadis Kostakis, said scant funding was not the only problem and blamed “the refusal of the state to listen to” experts.

Increasing the number of Greek donors from 70 to 150 per year would boost the number of transplants from 200 to 500, he said.