On March 12, 2021, an extremely important and cordial event took place in Lviv – “Gathering of people with transplanted organs.” This event brought together the people who have created a new history of Ukrainian transplantology over the past year.

14 out of 40 patients who got a chance survive were able to attend the event and tell their stories. Among them were our patients – Serhiy Kozachok from Donetsk region, Vitaliy Babak from Odesa, and 22-year-old Vasyl Khudyo from Lviv region.

There were representatives of the state, thanks to whom the post-mortem transplantation in Ukraine became official and these days it has the opportunity to develop in a civilized way.

Lubomyr from Lviv also came to this meeting, he found the strength to make a difficult decision at the moment of loss to donate his mother’s organs to save 4 people. He received incredibly insightful words of gratitude from the people he helped rescue and was once again convinced that he had done the right thing.

Many hearty words were said by the doctors who wrote this story with their own hands. They spoke not so much as specialists, but as ordinary people, with their emotions and feelings. As Prof. Borys Todurov remarked with emotion, “cardiac surgeons also cry.”

And really, it’s hard to be restrained when you see how a dream you’ve been pursuing all your life becomes a reality. Prof. Todurov performed his first transplant at the Institute of Transplantology 20 years ago thanks to his own enthusiasm and faith in his work. Then there were long 15 years of loss and hopelessness. And last year, thanks to Oleg Samchuk, director of the Clinical Emergency Hospital of Lviv, posthumous transplantation became a reality and gained incredible momentum in just a year. This is a big step forward and an opportunity to fully and civilly develop transplantation in Ukraine.

We thank the organizer and active public figure Iryna Zaslavets for the “Gathering of people with transplanted organs”. This is a great help to us, the doctors.

We are grateful to our colleagues who are developing Ukrainian transplantology together.
We are grateful to the civil servants who made posthumous transplantation possible in Ukraine.
We are grateful to the donor families for their generosity and courage.
We are grateful to patients for their trust.

May there be life!