The project was initiated by Polish MEP Adam Jarubas of the Polish People’s Party (PSL) together with the Silesian Centre for Heart Diseases in Zabrze, southern Poland.
The exhibition features posters created by students of the Academy of Fine Arts in Katowice and forms part of the 40th-anniversary commemoration of Poland’s first successful heart transplant.
Speaking at the opening, Metsola described the 1985 transplant performed by Professor Zbigniew Religa and his team as a milestone in both Polish and European healthcare. She noted that the operation took place under “harsh conditions of communist control” yet became a symbol of ingenuity and perseverance. Metsola added that organ transplants save more than 30,000 European lives each year.
Za nami intensywny dzień w Brukseli. 🇵🇱 🇪🇺 Z okazji 40. rocznicy pierwszej udanej transplantacji serca w Polsce razem z...
Opublikowany przez Śląskie Centrum Chorób Serca/Silesian Center for Heart Diseases Wtorek, 18 listopada 2025
Jarubas, who chairs the Parliament’s health committee, said Religa’s achievement had offered rare hope during the communist era and helped shape modern Polish healthcare. He highlighted the continued leadership of the Silesian Centre for Heart Diseases, including its training of Ukrainian transplant specialists.
The MEP also stressed the exhibition’s timeliness, coming ahead of the European Commission’s forthcoming EU Cardiovascular Disease Strategy, which the European People’s Party has backed as a counterpart to the EU’s Beating Cancer Plan.
The opening was accompanied by a conference on organ-transplant challenges and cross-border cooperation, attended by MEPs and medical experts. Both events mark 40 years since Religa’s team carried out Poland’s first successful heart transplant in November 1985.
Read more about this topic:
(mp)
Source: Polish Radio English Service/PAP/Facebook.com/Silesian Center for Heart Diseases