News

May 17, 2018 – Kyiv, Ukraine – Today, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted at its second reading draft law No. 2386-1a "On Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of Ukraine on Health Care and Transplantation of Human Organs and Other Anatomical Materials". It is an important and long-awaited step forward to developing transplantology in Ukraine.

The draft law was registered in the Verkhovna Rada back in August 2015, that is, almost three years ago. The Ministry of Health of Ukraine acknowledged the importance of establishing the legal basis for the development of a national system regulating transplantation of human organs, tissues and cells. Therefore, we took part in the elaboration and finalization of this draft law and have consistently supported its adoption.

The establishment of well-regulated transplantation practices is one of the indicators of progress in improving national healthcare, and the willingness of most citizens to donate organs or other anatomical materials, either while alive (in the case of bone marrow transplant) or after death, is representative of a healthy civil society in general and a high personal responsibility of each citizen in particular. However, we should all understand that the Ukrainian specialists will not conduct kidney or heart transplantations the next day after the draft law adoption. There has been no significant progress in this field for over 20 years: no modern equipment has been purchased, no trainings for transplantation specialists have been organized, no information systems or registers of donors and recipients have been created, no norms and regulations for addressing most issues (in particular, on the quality and safety of procedures and the work of relevant healthcare institutions involved in the transplantation process) have been developed.

In the meantime, the Ministry of Health of Ukraine has started making the first steps prior to the draft law adoption: we developed regulations for matters related to the diagnosis of brain death, approved the official instructions for transplant coordinators, and launched the pilot project on modification of the mechanism for funding surgical transplantation of human organs and other anatomical materials. We are also working on the establishment of the National Bone Marrow Donor Registry, the development of training programs for transplant coordinators and the harmonization of current legislation with the EU Directive’s provisions on transplantation of human organs, tissues and cells.

Although the Ministry’s experts say the new law is not perfect and contains conflicting provisions, the development of transplantation in Ukraine is one of the priorities for the Ministry of Health, which is why we continue making the utmost effort to implement the law and to develop a national transplantation system.