Many years have passed since the girl Minela Zukic died in a traffic accident. Her noble family agreed to donate her organs, which saved and prolonged the lives of other people. Unfortunately, this year, out of 11 transplants, only one was from a cadaveric donor. If Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) wants to join the international organ exchange network Eurotransplant, it is necessary to strengthen transplant medicine.
Fahir Muminovic from Maglaj developed kidney failure as a forty-year-old. Like hundreds of others, he waited for a transplant in vain.
“I was on dialysis for almost four and a half years, and my brother came and offered himself. As for the state, the kidney would never have come. Not even to this day,” he tells us.
“I waited seven and a half years on the federal list until a sister appeared as a donor,” says Mevludin Terzic, a transplanted kidney patient from Gracanica.
Although legal solutions have improved, nothing has changed in practice. Consent from the family is still required for a person who, by signing a donor card, stated that they want to donate organs after death, and this consent is often missing.
“The law is just a dead letter on paper. No one enforces it, and no one cares. How long this will continue, we kidney patients do not know,” emphasizes Hasib Ibrahimovic, former president of the Association of Kidney Patients in Gracanica.
Eleven years ago, the girl Minela Zukic from Zavidovici died in a traffic accident. Her father Sead, decided without hesitation to donate her organs, which prolonged the lives of patients in Doboj-Istok, Srebrenik, Kladanj…
“I guided myself by thinking what if, by any chance, an organ had to be donated to my two daughters or my wife. Would I refuse or accept it? Of course, I would accept it,” he emphasizes.
“The operation lasted about eight hours. I woke up as a new person, and that is why I say that September 2nd is my second birthday,” says Ifeta Karic, a transplanted patient from Doboj-Istok.
“Only five months older than my son was our Minela, may she rest in peace, who gave me a longer life. The emotions were intense, and I felt the hardest at that moment. It was very difficult for me,” recalls Hasija Heric, a transplanted kidney patient from Kladanj.
The importance of organ donation is understood by those who have been given a new chance at life, like Fahir Muminovic, from the beginning of the story:
“Nine and a half years have passed since my kidney was donated. Life is different, better. A new life. And here I am working, thank God. I fight.”, Federalna writes.
