XIII  ANNIVERSARY OF THE MURDER/EXPLANT OF PAOLO MONDO

Two faces, two opposite destinies,

upset parents  at night

 

MARTIN BANACH 18 anni             PAOLO MONDO 19 anni

 

MARTIN BANACH: 03/08/94 moped accident, he gets up and then faints and falls to the ground and is admitted to Cardarelli Hospital in Naples. Staff there ask if he is an organ donor and don’t allow anyone to see him. His parents ask a German doctor to intervene and she is able after two days to get him away from the hospital and takes him by airplane to the University Clinic in Essen. The first day he opens his eyes and speaks: no permanent injury. A year later he’s playing basketball and now he thanks the doctor who saved him from explant.

 

PAOLO MONDO: 21/11/93 moped accident, he gets up, falls to the ground, but remains conscious and is admitted to the Ospedale Maggiore in Trieste where he is left in the corridor of the Accident and Emergency ward for hours. When his parents arrive they notice that he is losing blood from his head: then he is intubated and sent to the Cattinara, the explant/transplant hospital. On arrival they ask his distraught parents for his organs. His parents aren’t lucky enough to have an honest doctor on their side, they have only got greedy transplanters who snatch a signature from them and omit to tell them that the explant is not from a dead body but from a person whose heart is beating autonomously. Paolo's life has been ended by doctors. Now he is not here anymore, but we are grateful to his parents, sister and brother that since that time are fighting with us so that nobody else has to relive that terrible experience.

These boys could have had the same destiny. What was the difference? The stubbornness of an honest doctor saved Martin, interest in transplants and doctors with no scruples ended Paolo’s life.

We would like to invite parents and family to protect their loved ones by presenting written opposition to organ explant and tissue removal on admission to hospital. Italy unfortunately is in competition with Spain for the explant/transplant record and this puts us all at risk.

 

Presidente

Nerina Negrello