June 06, 2016 - 1:30 PM
RIO DE JANEIRO - Brazil's interim President Michel Temer says he has signed a decree that will guarantee an Air Force jet be on call to transport organs for transplant.
Temer's remarks Monday followed a damning article in Rio de Janeiro's O Globo newspaper saying the Air Force denied 153 requests to transport healthy organs for transplant between 2013 and 2015. On the same days as those requests were denied, the Air Force responded positively to more than 700 requests for transport by ministers and other top officials, according to the report.
In a brief statement Monday, Temer suggested that while the number of organs that never made it to patients may appear small it was "relevant" because each one represented a life.
Starting Tuesday, "there will no longer be such deficiency," Temer pledged.
News from © The Associated Press, 2016