A few days before the national day of reflection on organ donation and the transplant, which takes place on June 22, the commune of San Martino Di Lota became this Friday “city ambassador of organ donation”. An action which resulted in the installation by the municipality chaired by Marie-Hélène Padovani, of a sign at the entrance of the town, in the presence of Anne-Charlotte Santelli, grafted of lungs at the age of 24 years.
“If I had not been grafted, I would have died thirteen years ago” she recalls not without emotion. “I am affected by cystic fibrosis. At the time, there was not the treatments that exist today. We knew that the only way out was the transplant.” For several years, she managed to maintain a relatively normal life. “When I was a child, I went to school normally, I was doing dance. Afterwards, in college and high school, I had from time to time infusion of antibiotics or stays in the hospital, but spaced and which allowed to resume a classic life in the meantime.
In adulthood, the situation is deteriorating more and more, due to a disease that mainly affects the airways and digestive. “It was a slow and progressive degradation, but the last year before the transplant, I was permanently infused to receive antibiotics, because my lungs infected all the time. I was connected to oxygen pipes, and I was so weak that I could no longer eat myself. I was very thin, and I could not take my shower either. alive, while waiting for the transplant. ”
She then enters an emergency protocol, and she is written on the so -called super emergency list. “I waited for a transplant for seven months, and I was grafted in super emergency: this is a special list where we have a priority on everyone. Doctors put us on the super emergency list when they believe that we only have only seven days to live, and that we will not be able to wait any longer.” The transplant takes place in Marseille, at the North Hospital. Today, Anne-Charlotte continues to be followed medically. She takes daily treatment, but she found an autonomy that was no longer possible before. “My life has changed at all. I breathe without a pipe, I no longer need to be under infusion. I resumed my studies just after my transplant. I can go out again, take the air, eat at the restaurant, go on a trip … things that seem quite simple, but that we can no longer do before the transplant.”
“A deceased can save up to seven lives”
Since her transplant, Anne-Charlotte has engaged in awareness of organ donation. She is a member of the Grégory Lemarchal association, which is part of the collective transplant +, bringing together several structures around the donation of organs and transplants. “I was already engaged before my transplant because it concerned my pathology. Today, I have much more energy, and I can devote myself more.” It was in this context that she proposed to the commune of San Martino di Lota to join the program of towns and villages ambassadors of organ donation, initiated in 2023. “When this project of ambassador cities started, I naturally joined it, and I try to do what I can at my level. The goal is to promote organ donation within its town and its citizens. The starting point is the installation of the plaque, since the people who pass here will see it. It can open a discussion, and I am ready to answer all the questions of the inhabitants.”
In his eyes, informing is essential, especially to deconstruct certain received ideas. “There is no limit age to be a donor, and there is no health conditions to be respected either. To be a donor, you have to be in a state of encephalic death, in other words brain death, but it is very rare, that represents only 1 % of deaths in the hospital.” She insists on a central point: the law today considers each person as a default donor, unless she expressed a refusal during his lifetime, in writing or with her relatives. “We can register in the national refusal register, but an oral sentence to his family is enough. If a patient is not registered in the register, the doctors will then question the relatives.”
For Anne-Charlotte, it is very important for each person to have this dialogue with their loved ones. “When people have never talked about organ donation, it is much more difficult for those close to pronouncing themselves, while if they had talked about it, it would have been easier to make a decision. Unfortunately, they must choose quickly, we don’t have a lot of time to think.” According to her, the ambassador cities project makes it possible to give birth to this dialogue within families. “I hope that it will open dialogues, that people will take advantage of seeing this panel to ask themselves the question, to talk to their loved ones, to say whether or not they are for or not.”
If she recognizes that some people remain uncomfortable with the idea of approaching the subject of organ donation, often associated with death, she declares that she wishes to develop the debate. “I try to talk about life, because a deceased person can save up to seven lives. It is certain that, in a moment of shock and mourning, it is not necessarily what we will see first, but if we can show people that seven people can live thanks to a gift, I find it great. When we expect a transplant, we hope that a family will say yes, that is important to make things more concrete. Recognizing the gift I have received, and my way of thanking the donor, is to promote organ donation, and to talk about all the lives afterwards. ”
