Stories to be continued: Testimonies about organ donation and transplantation | “Chain of Life"

Synopsis

Madia Sotiriou is a pulmonologist and intensive care physician, who works at Evangelismos Hospital’s university intensive care unit. She also assists at the Transplant Coordination department whenever a new organ donor becomes available. Despina Chilidou is Head of Transplant Coordination at the Onassis Heart Surgery Centre, with over 25 years of experience in a field that is unfamiliar to many people, even within the medical community.

For an organ donation to take place, a bridge must be established between medical professionals like Madia Sotiriou, who must determine whether a patient has irreversible brain damage and obtain the patient's family's consent for organ donation; and medical professionals like Despina Chilidou, who, after receiving this consent, must buy time, assemble medical teams, arrange for the transplants' transportation, inform and prepare the recipients, and, most importantly, foresee any likely or unlikely obstacles that could delay this process and prove fatal for the potential recipient. In short, the two of them are trying to transform this painful loss into life. To create a sense of meaningful continuity between the donor and the recipient.

Director's note

"In the “Chain of Life” episode, the protagonists are two of the most important “links,” two healthcare professionals, Adamantia and Despina, who each serve the transplant task from their position with great love, passion, and self-denial. Their sincere narrative is disarming, and their everyday struggle to offer life is constant and systematic. “Organ donation is the greatest gift of life, the best way to confront brain death,” Adamantia will say at one point, while Despina will add, “It is so unfair to lose your dear one, yet you can turn death into life.”"

–Marina Danezi

The three stories in the series "Stories to be continued" form part of the Organmeetings information program.

The "Organmeetings" program is part of the Onassis Foundation National Initiative for Organ Donation and Transplantation, which aims to rebuild the transplantation sector and strengthen the culture of organ donation in Greece.

The Onassis National Transplant Centre, which will be delivered to the state in 2024, is the focal point of the National Initiative for Organ Donation and Transplantation. Together with the nearby Onassis Cardiac Surgery Centre, they will be Greece's first fully digital hospitals and two of Europe's first fully digital hospitals.