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The transplant law is going to improve due to a project to allow medical authorities to take organs from any patient in cerebral death, unless the latter expressed opposition while alive. Professor Irinel Popescu, a president of the Romtransplant Association, said it last Wednesday.

"Right now the draft is in the Parliament. Senators passed it and we hope it will be approved of and adopted in the end", the professor said during the Romtransplant Congress in Bucharest.

According to the current transplant law, organs may be taken from a patient in cerebral death only if the family consents. The Romtransplant president argued: "The new law has it that only the organs of a person who in his/ her lifetime wrote down his/ her disagreement that his/ her organs be taken for someone else after his/ her death may not be extracted. We can say this coming law is the most modern and complete. It is also safe in terms of the definition of cerebral death to make sure a patient standing a chance to survive isn't left without organs."

More than 1,500 organ transplants were achieved in Romania in the last 10 years. But the need for organs is much greater than the number of donors. There are 300 persons on the wait list for a liver transplant, for instance, whereas the total number of donors is 25. Doctor Popescu estimates the number will reach 50 by the end of the year. (O.R.)

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