There are about 600 people on the waiting list for a kidney transplant in Serbia, and in 2024 only 17 of them will be transplanted. That's why many are looking for salvation in Belarus, where, however, the operation costs tens of thousands of euros. Unlike Serbia, Montenegro has been covering the costs of transplants in that country for its citizens since last year
Ivana Jović is 37 years old and has been living a new life for the last year and a half - thanks to a donor from Belarus. She received a new kidney in Minsk.
And she's not the only one.
On the waiting list for transplantation there are about 2.000 people in Serbia. The most, about a thousand, are waiting for a new cornea, and about 600 a new kidney. While they wait, some of them are raising money for transplants in Belarus.
That country allows residents of other countries to have organ transplants done in their country, for a lot of money. Everything requires several tens of thousands of euros. First, the procedure must be completed and, most importantly, the matching with the kidney donor must be determined.
Ivana Jović needed about 100.000 euros for the transplant and all related expenses. She collected them herself through humanitarian actions.
For patients from Montenegro, from 2024, all costs related to transplantation in Belarus will be covered by the Health Insurance Fund of that country. According to the signed agreement, five Montenegrin citizens per year will be able to perform kidney transplants in that Eastern European country at the expense of the state.
57 people are waiting for a kidney transplant in Montenegro.
In Serbia, the situation is different - the state does not cover the costs of kidney transplants abroad, and only between 20 and 30 transplants are performed annually.
The road to Belarus
Ivana Jović's journey from finding out that she had diseased kidneys to their normal functioning again took eighteen years.
She was on dialysis for two and a half years, and for the same period on the list for a kidney transplant in Serbia. Since she did not have a donor in her family, she had to wait for, as everyone calls it, "the most important call in life."
"I was hoping that I would get my turn, but considering that the lists are long and the number of transplants in previous years was small, I decided to try to collect money for a transplant in Belarus," says Jović for "Vreme".
Ivana then set out to collect the necessary documentation and money so that she could start the procedure with the clinic in Belarus as soon as possible.
"When I heard about the transplant in Belarus, I was afraid that it was not a scam. It used to happen that sometimes some organizations took money for transplants, and then the patients were never transplanted. However, a friend of mine went there and kept sending me photos. I saw that nothing would happen here in the near future, that decades could pass if it were my turn, and that's exactly why I decided to go to Belarus", says Jović.
In January 2023, she attended preparations in Minsk and "begged God to collect the money as soon as possible."
With the help of various humanitarian foundations and actions, she collected money and received a new kidney in the summer of 2023.
"I was here for two and a half years on the list, in Belarus for six months." Last year, 12 cadaveric kidney transplants were performed in Belarus for patients from our country, and 17 were performed in Serbia. There is a small difference between the number of transplants at the expense of the state in Serbia and those who paid to go to Belarus", Ivana Jović tells "Vreme".
Small number of transplants in Serbia
According to data from 2023, a total of 32 transplants were performed in Serbia - 23 kidneys, four livers and one heart transplant with 13 donors.
According to the current Law on Transplantation of Human Organs and Tissues, anyone who does not want to be an organ donor must declare so and be registered in the database of the Directorate for Biomedicine.
But that doesn't mean that everyone else is automatically a potential organ donor. If a person has not declared that he does not want to be a donor, and has experienced brain death, he can be a potential organ donor with the implementation of complex medical tests and diagnostics.
For all that, the consent of the family is required. There have been few such consents in recent years, so the number of transplants is also low.
Two years ago, the Government of Serbia adopted amendments to the law on transplanting human organs, which would make the procedure easier, but that law has not yet reached the agenda of the Serbian Parliament.
Patient associations previously demanded changes to the law that would not require family consent if someone declared during their lifetime that they wanted to be a donor in the event of brain death.
"It would be good if the autonomy of the will was respected, as well as in the case when someone declares that he does not want to be a donor; that even in the case when someone has not declared that he does not want to donate organs, the family is not asked", explains Jović.
Patients have repeatedly written to the Ministry of Health asking for talks to discuss whether the Health Insurance Fund can cover their travel and transplant costs in Belarus, but so far this has not been on the agenda.
Minister without portfolio in the Government of Serbia, Nenad Popvić, recently visited Belarus and visited three patients who underwent transplantation in Minsk.
"We are kind of angry, so to speak, at Minister Popović who went there, visited our patients, which is excellent moral support, but it was not made public that these people paid for the transplant themselves, that the state of Serbia did not give them anything." It tastes bitter when you are left to yourself. We talked to Minister Zlatibor Lončar, but we never got an answer in the end, and we will continue to insist on it", says Ivana Jović.
She managed to find funding for her own transplant, but struggles to get the state to help those on the waiting list.
Last year, in 2024, only 17 kidney transplants were performed in Serbia.
At the same time, 12 patients from Serbia transplanted kidneys in Belarus at their own expense.
Montenegro: Five kidney transplants per year at the expense of the state
In Minsk, in early August 2024, the first kidney transplant was performed for a Montenegrin citizen at the expense of the state.
Last year, the Health Insurance Fund of Montenegro signed an agreement with the competent institutions in Belarus, according to which it covers the costs of kidney transplants for five patients per year.
There are less than 60 people on the waiting list for a kidney in Montenegro.
Before going to Belarus, patients must pass two councils at the Clinical Center of Montenegro and the council of the Health Insurance Fund, and then go to Minsk and undergo diagnostic examinations there. If a patient is eligible for a transplant, they are placed on a waiting list.
Since 2019, about 23 patients from Montenegro have undergone cadaveric kidney transplantation at the Belarusian Center at the expense of the patients.
How Montenegrin kidney patients coped
Jelena Nenežić from Podgorica has been undergoing dialysis three times a week for almost eight years.
This 36-year-old woman is currently in the process of collecting the necessary documentation so that she can be on the transplant list in Belarus as soon as possible.
The patient association "Hrabro u novi život" managed to achieve its goal and put the issue of paying kidney transplants to patients on the agenda, which was later adopted.
"We started with patients' signatures, so we submitted the initiative to the Ministry of Health, we started the media and asked for meetings with the minister, the director of the fund, the director of the clinical center. At one point we even wanted to go on strike with dialysis and of course the media covered that, everything went public, and after a while the minister promised to visit the Science Center in Minsk. After that, everything was finished for the benefit of our patients", says Nenežić for "Vreme".
Private archiveJelena has diabetes, three stents and is preparing for a kidney transplant in Belarus
Kidney transplants have not been performed in Montenegro in recent years. The last kidney transplant at KCCG was performed in 2019, and since then patients who have a donor, a living relative, go to Turkey for a transplant at the expense of the state.
Those who do not have a donor can go to Belarus at the expense of the state since last year.
"In Montenegro, we don't have doctors who would perform transplants." Previously, they were done in cooperation with doctors from Croatia, however, that is no longer the case," says Nenežić.
She hopes to go to Belarus soon.
"We fought to get the possibility for the state to cover our transplant in Belarus. We hope we all get there. When the patient passes consultations and all examinations and if everything is as it should be, he is immediately put on the waiting list. I still have some reviews to do and I hope to be on that list", says Jelena Nenežić.
Why are there so many transplants in Belarus?
According to the Law on Organ Donation, in Belarus, all those who experience brain death are donors, except in cases where someone during their lifetime, or their spouse, explicitly states that they are against it.
That country is in the top ten countries in the world in terms of the number of transplants, and health tourism is one of the developing branches.
The only thing left for patients from Serbia is to follow the example of patients from Montenegro, concludes Jović.
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