Five-year-old dies waiting for a transplant in Caracas

One more victim was added to the list of minors who have died in Venezuela while waiting for a transplant, a procedure that has been suspended in the country since 2017.

Luis Josué Acevedo, 5, died on Tuesday, October 26 at the University Hospital of Caracas, after his relatives demanded authorities reactivate the organ donations program in the country.

“My son wanted to live. He wanted to be a policeman or a fireman. He did not want to leave, he wanted to fight,” said the boy’s mother Juliarbis Acevedo. She also asked the Venezuelan government to reactivate transplants and prevent more minors from dying due to the lack of procedures in the country.

“This can happen to your mother or even to you. I can’t deal with such great pain,” she told the media.

“We need to understand that every child is unique. For you, it might be a number; for someone else, it is a son, a brother, a nephew. This is the time to act, to abandon bureaucracy, and get to work to save all the children who, like Josue, dream of becoming firemen, policemen, astronauts,” said the Director of Fundacion Santi y sus Amigos, Fabiana Garantón.

As of September 15, 14 children have died this year in the Nephrology Department at the Dr. José Manuel de Los Ríos Hospital. However, the number of deaths nationwide is unknown due to the lack of official data.

Venezuela’s National Transplant Organization (ONTV) was the organization in charge of procuring organs for transplants. In 2014, however, the Ministry of Health transferred those duties to the newly created Venezuelan Foundation for Organ, Tissue and Cell Donations and Transplants (Fundavene by its acronym in Spanish), reported El Nacional.

Since then, the number of transplants performed in the country decreased. In 2017, Fundavene suspended the organ donation program.

According to Fundavene, the measure was a response to the shortage of immunosuppressive maintenance drugs, failures in the treatments performed prior to transplants, deficiencies in hospital networks, deterioration of services, and lack of qualified personnel.

Since 2017, more than 960 transplants were not performed, of which 150 were needed to save children and adolescents.