With a law, advance a broad public debate the Federal Minister of health, Jens Spahn (CDU) wants to increase the willingness of the Germans to the organ donation.
Everyone should make once in the life of the issue and decide whether or not he would donate in case of death bodies, said Spahn during a visit to the University hospital of Schleswig-Holstein on Friday in Kiel. This is the patient guilty in Germany on the waiting list for a transplant. Around 40 percent of Germans according to the Minister, an organ donor card, 84 percent welcome according to surveys, the Option in principle. “So, there’s still potential,” said Spahn. On Saturday the national day of organ donation is committed.
A kidney for four patients
Over 10,000 Sick people waiting, according to the brokerage Euro TRANS-location plans in Germany to a donor organ. “Every day three of them die, statistically, because they are not in time a suitable Organ is available,” the German organ transplantation Foundation (DSO).
On a kidney – the most commonly-needed donor organ wait – about four times as many people as there are organs. Average waiting period: approximately six years.
Currently it looks not so, as it would improve the Situation of those Affected soon: by 2017, the number of organ donors in Germany has reached a new low point. According to the DSO, there were only 797 donor again 60 less than in the previous year. That was the lowest level in 20 years. In Germany, there are now fewer than ten donors per Million inhabitants. Axel Rahmel, medical Board of the DSO, speaks of “a dramatic development”.
- You want to be an organ donor*in? Here you can order a free donor card
Bill for September announced
Spahn announced, after the summer break in September to present a bill, in order to achieve a better financial equipment of the clinics. “It should not be a minus business,” said Spahn about the his opinion, inadequate compensation for organ harvesting. In addition, he wanted to improve the law, the Situation of the transplantation of officers at the clinics. You would need to have sufficient time to discuss with family members and hospital management, all the important questions.
“If I make a proposal, I’m still open to September,” said Spahn, with a view to the discussion about the introduction of the so-called contradiction solution or a binding decision solution proposed by Schleswig-Holstein’s Minister of health, Heiner Garg (FDP). So far, no one has to explain in Germany, whether it is for a organ donation or not. Health insurance companies and the Federal government rely on education campaigns and to promote the organ donor card that is also included in Spahn.
Contradiction solution could donor Numbers increase
In countries such as France, Italy or the Netherlands, the opposition solution is: Everyone is an organ donor unless he expressly declares. The mandatory decision-making solution would mean according to the ideas of Garg that everyone would have to explain – such as when he applied for an identity card, passport or driver’s license.
Who would be willing to use his organs in case of death, to donate, get a Sticker in heart shape on his card. Someone should change his mind, would he communicate this to just the digital a register and a Sticker on his papers to remove. A new card would not be necessary. The United States have been able to increase according to Garg, with this model, the number of organ donors.
Severe years for the organ donation in Germany
Garg wants his proposal to the conference of Ministers of Health on 21./22. June in Düsseldorf, Spahn imagine. The Federal Minister showed up in Kiel, open-minded, he was speaking with Garg, but listening to all the suggestions. It is a matter of “whether we get a higher obligation”. “I can imagine, in principle, to create such a Situation where every time the topic has to deal with,” said Spahn. He called to speak to the families about this ethical question of principle.
For a fundamental rethinking of North Rhine-Westphalia health Minister Karl-Josef Laumann (CDU). “In Germany, we need a opposition solution. In most EU countries is already being practiced. Otherwise, we will pay the dramatic development in the case of the Donor in Germany and North Rhine-Westphalia, can’t stop,“ said Laumann on Friday. He, personally, could think of a contradiction solution with right of objection by the members, if a potential organ donor has not objected during his lifetime, expressly. On the Federal as well as länder level, a wide debate was needed on how to implement a contradiction, solution.
The hospitals in organ donation a key position, such as Laumann said. “Unfortunately, to be recognized in many hospitals so far, not all the people who might be willing to donate organs. Potential donations are lost“, said Laumann.
“We had a really hard year for organ donation in Germany – even with the scandals in the hospitals,” admitted Spahn. These cases have mainly affected the past. Meanwhile, the processes had been revised and new guidelines with greater effort. “Now it is a matter of gradual trust to regain,” said the Minister. The number of actual organ donors in Germany has declined from 2010 to 2017, from 1300 to 769.