National Transplant Organization

The government plans to upgrade and increase funding for the National Transplant Organization (NTO) by two million euros and recruit 27 additional transplant coordinators, the deputy minister of health has said.

The tacit accusation by a prominent defense attorney who suggested that the head of pediatric intensive care at the Patra University Hospital, Andreas Iliadis, was selling organs abroad, has sparked reactions and raised concerns that such scurrilous claims harm the credibility of what is a very transparent system. 

Greece is seeking to emulate the institution of the local transplant coordinator in hospitals that was pioneered in Spain and led to a spike in organ donation rates.

The organs of a 30-year-old American tourist who was killed in a road accident while vacationing on the island of Tinos have gone to eight people, it emerged over on Sunday.

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.