Background:Transplantation medicine is a relatively young medical field. Human organs are used for treatment purposes. These organs are donated with the aim to help fellow humans suffering from incurable diseases. A prerequisite for successful treatment is the development of a program that will take care of procuring the necessary organs. This should be an independent activity which requires appropriate addressing of professional, legal, organizational and ethical aspects.
Methods:All the primary sources of Slovenija-transplant archives as well as various secondary sources were used for the purposes of this research. The collected data were processed using stan dardized and evaluated historiographic approaches, descriptive-analytic methods used for analyzing archived and published secondary sources.
Results:In 1970, kidney transplantations from living related donors were started in Slovenia. As long as the transplantation activity covered only kidney transplants from living donors, all the activities were conducted by nephrologists. The Act on removal and transplantation of human body parts for medical purposes issued in 1985, and the Rules on detailed medical criteria and the methods for determining occurrence of brain death of the person from whom it is permitted to take body parts for transplantation for treatment adopted in 1986, made it possible to transplant organs from deceased donors. With the transition to deceased donor organs and the possibility of transplanting other organs (heart, liver, lungs, pancreas), it became necessary to organize these activities at national level. In 1992, the Extended Expert Council for Transplantation was established. The council planned all the necessary procedures for the establishment of a national transplantation network, and 24-hour coordination, as well as for the accelerated adoption of a transplantation law which enabled the es-tablishment of Slovenia-transplant in 2000. After the establishment of 24-hour central coordination, the number of organs procured from deceased donors has increased substantially. Slovenia has reached a similar number of organs obtained from deceased donors per million inhabitants as member countries of the Eurotransplant association. At the same time the system was safe, reliable, transparent and properly regulated. Slovenia could therefore start negotiations for joining Eurotransplant. Even before the formal establishment of Slovenija Transplant, Slovenia became a full member of the association.
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