health
Lauterbach for a new attempt at organ donation reform
A woman holds an organ donor card in her hands. photo
© Hendrik Schmidt/dpa
According to the latest figures, the number of organ donations continues to decline. The Minister of Health considers the applicable legal rules to have failed – and is calling for a new attempt.
In view of the significantly reduced number of organ donations, Federal Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach is pushing for a renewed attempt at fundamentally new donation rules. “The current law has failed,” the SPD politician told the German Press Agency on Monday. Many people are willing to donate organs, but do not document it. “That’s why the Bundestag should try again to vote on the objection solution. We owe it to those who are waiting in vain for organ donations.”
Objection solution means that all people should initially automatically be considered donors – unless you object. A first attempt to do this failed in January 2020. Instead, the Bundestag passed a more moderate legal regulation, according to which organ donations are only permitted with express consent. According to this, however, more information should encourage more citizens to make a concrete decision about a donation after death. A key part of the reform, a new register in which one can store declarations of one’s willingness to donate online, has not yet been set up.
Only ten donors per million population
The number of organ donations has fallen in recent years. As the German Foundation for Organ Transplantation (DSO) announced on Monday, there were 6.9 percent fewer donations than in 2021. Last year, 869 people donated one or more organs after their death – 64 fewer than in the same period last year. The total number of organs removed also fell from 2905 to 2662.
This means that in Germany in 2022 there were just a little more than ten donors per million inhabitants. At the same time, around 8,500 people are on waiting lists for an organ. “We are still facing major challenges when it comes to organ donation,” said Axel Rahmel, Medical Director of the DSO. According to the DSO, possible reasons for the decline are the corona pandemic and the resulting loss of staff in clinics. “Nevertheless, the question arises as to why it is not possible to increase the number of organ donations,” said Rahmel.