CHP of Dijon-Bourgogne University Hospital: Organ Harvesting Operations and Life-Saving Transplants

The CHP of Dijon-Bourgogne University Hospital was created in 1993.

Credit: K6FM Photo

The Hospital Collection Coordination (CHP) is the service responsible for managing organ harvesting operations from deceased patients at the Dijon-Bourgogne University Hospital. Led by two doctors, it relies on the expertise of seven nurses and a shared-time health manager.

Created in 1993, the CHP of Dijon-Bourgogne University Hospital has, in 2022, organized the collection of 77 organs and 70 tissues (cornea, skin, heart valve, artery, vein, etc.) from 21 brain dead patients. Added to this is the removal of 29 organs and 34 tissues from 12 so-called “Maastricht III” patients (patients who died after the end of resuscitation treatments which had become unreasonable).

These samples helped save the lives and/or improve the quality of life of 99 patients.

Each of these organs, with the exception of the kidneys, is removed by the surgical team from the hospital where the patient receiving the transplant is located. In a very limited time: for example, no more than four hours should elapse between the removal of a heart and its transplantation. Almost all of the organs are intended for patients in French hospitals, but it may happen that some are sent to European establishments close to the borders.

What are the missions of the Hospital Sampling Coordination?

The mission of the CHP consists of coordinating, from A to Z, all operations enabling sampling. “We participate in the clinical diagnosis of brain death, we carry out all the necessary examinations and assessments to determine whether the deceased patient is eligible and which organs can be removed, we contact the relatives, we inform the Agency of biomedicine so that a recipient is identified, we prepare the reception in Dijon of the surgical teams, we organize the collection operations in the operating room and the return of the body to the mortuary chamber”describes Céline Dupasquier, nurse at the CHP.

As a result, the Coordination team is in contact with a large number of services at the University Hospital: the four intensive care units, doctors from different departments called upon to examine the organs (cardiology, pulmonology, dermatology, etc.), services called upon to carry out the examinations (imaging, various biology and anatomopathology laboratories, etc.), the French Blood Establishment, the operating rooms, the mortuary chamber, the logistics of the CHU (couriers, stretcher bearers, etc.), the pharmacy, administrative services, and the risk and quality management unit. External actors are also called upon, in particular the Dijon-Burgundy airport, an essential infrastructure capable of accommodating flights 24 hours a day, taxis, law enforcement and the public prosecutor in the case of accident patients. of the road for example… Finally, the CHP is in constant contact with the National Biomedicine Agency, which keeps the register of patients waiting for a transplant.

“It is important that each of us is made aware of the issues of organ donation,” emphasizes Doctor Sébastien Prin. We still experience a lot of refusals from relatives of deceased people: around 33 and 42% depending on whether they are brain dead patients or Maastricht III patients. It should be remembered that in France, between 5,500 and 6,000 transplants are carried out each year, while there are 28,000 requests. National Donation Day, every year on June 22, and World Donation Day, which we celebrate today, are an opportunity to recall the importance of this subject and the role that plays, within the University Hospital and with the support of many stakeholders, the Hospital Sampling Coordination. »

Organ donation, reminder of some principles

Each of us is deemed to have consented to the donation of our organs, unless we have, during our lifetime, registered on the national register for refusal of donation as a priority. The Hospital Collection Coordination team, however, approaches the family in the event of a death in order to gather the position that the patient would have expressed to them during their lifetime. If you do not register on the register, it is therefore important to discuss the subject with your loved ones, and to clearly inform them, if necessary, of your agreement to donate your organs.

Organ harvesting is possible regardless of the age at which death occurs. The average age of patients sampled at the Dijon-Bourgogne University Hospital is 52 years (brain death) and 57 years (Maastricht III); nearly one in five brain-dead donors is over 75 years old. The liver in particular, which is the second most transplanted organ, can be removed without age limit.

In the event of organ removal, the surgical team undertakes to return the body of the deceased to their loved ones with full respect for their dignity.

In France, more than 63,000 people live thanks to a transplanted organ.

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