President Milanović Decorates Physicians and Entire KBC Zagreb Team that Performed First HSCT in Croatia
“From your circle evolved pioneers and veterans of transplantations, surely giants in your field. There are few disciplines in which countries of our size and financial capability – small country, few people, few patients – can measure up to and compare on the global level”, the President of the Republic Zoran Milanović said at a reception hosted on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the first hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) in the Republic of Croatia.
“What you have succeeded in the past forty years brought to the fore your small group of people that managed to reach the world’s top in medicine where the richest, most organized and most coordinated peoples and nations of the world compete. It is an elite company, and to be the elite means to be among the chosen. Not to be chosen in a lottery but in a competition in which knowledge, persistence, faith in success and the need to help human beings are essential”, President Milanović noted.
Congratulating the transplantation team on their anniversary, President Milanović wished them to be what they have been all these forty years – above and beyond Croatian possibilities. “Croatian possibilities are ever greater, yet always limited by time and space and the size of our nation, but you changed that norm. The likes of you are rare and I congratulate you from the bottom of my heart”, the President stated in concluding his address.
On the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the first hematopoietic stem cell transplantation performed in this part of Europe, President Milanović presented the Order of Ante Starčević to Fellow of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts Andrija Kaštelan and Professor Boris Labar, PhD, for extraordinary contribution and outstanding merit in healthcare and the development of HSCT in the Republic of Croatia and in the world. The President also presented the Charter of the Republic of Croatia for outstanding contribution and extraordinary merit in the development of hematopoietic stem cell transplantation in the Republic of Croatia to the hematopoietic stem cell transplantation and cell therapy team of the University Hospital Centre Zagreb.
Prof. Radovan Vrhovac, PhD, accepted the Charter of the Republic of Croatia on behalf of the HSCT and Cell Therapy Team of University Hospital Centre Zagreb. Prof. Boris Labar, PhD, gave a thank you speech for the decorations and honours, recalling the origin of extracting stem cells at Rebro saying that conditions were by no means always ideal at the time. “We had to put much effort in numerous diagnostic professions so that they were at the appropriate level to perform transplantations,” Prof. Labar recalled in his address, and mentioned the names of many doctors, specialists and nurses who participated in the development of hematopoietic stem cell transplantation in the Republic of Croatia. “Today, transplantation is a mature person who functions”, he stated in concluding his address.
Alongside President Milanović were the Head of the Cabinet of the President Bartol Šimunić, the Adviser to the President for Education Jadranka Žarković, and the Adviser to the President for Human Rights and Civil Society Melita Mulić.
PHOTO: Office of the President of the Republic of Croatia / Filip Glas