During these 25 years, 3,670 liver transplants have been performed in Catalonia, of which 224 to persons under the age of 15

Today, Monday 23rd February, Catalonia celebrates the 25th Anniversary of its first liver transplant, also the first in Spain, and which was guided by doctors Margarit and Jaurrieta on 23rd February 1984, in the Hospital de Bellvitge.

Un any després, s’autoritzava el primer Programa de trasplantament hepàtic infantil, a l’Hospital Maternoinfantil Vall d’Hebron, amb l’equip dels doctors Martínez Ibáñez i Margarit.

A year after, the first Children’s Liver Transplant Programme was authorised in the Hospital Maternoinfantil Vall d’Hebron, with the medical team of Martínez Ibáñez and Margarit.

From then and until 31st December 2008, a total of 3,670 liver transplants were performed, of which 224 were made to persons under 15 years of age. Moreover, a total of 9,286 kidney transplants were performed, 899 heart transplants, 445 lung transplants, 430 pancreas transplants, and 1 intestine transplant last year. On the other hand, a total of 6,578 bone marrow transplants and 74,052 of different tissues: cornea, osteotendinous, vascular, skin and cell cultures, and amniotic membrane transplants.

The decision of the Ministry of Health and Social Security (1984) of creating the figure of the transplant coordinator and to lay the foundation stone of OCATT by creating the Transplant Programme was fundamental to increase the obtention of organs and to promote all organ and tissue transplant programmes. The sucess of the creation and functions of this figure was taken as a model to extend it to the rest of Spain during the eighties.