Gröhe promotes more organ donations

Campaign: Minister of Health Gröhe promotes more organ donation

07/06/2014

„Every organ donation can save lives“: Federal Health Minister Hermann Gröhe points to the start of a new campaign to promote more organ donations. With the motto „I decide“ should be advertised for the completion of an organ donor card. Today is the day of the organ donation.

Campaign for more organ donations
On Friday, the Federal Ministry of Health (BMG) and the Federal Center for Health Education (BZgA) have launched a new campaign for more organ donations. Federal Health Minister Hermann Gröhe (CDU) said in Berlin: Every organ donation can save lives.“ The goal of the campaign with the motto „I decide“ is to move as many people as possible to fill out an organ donor card. People who make their personal decision to donate organs also give their relatives the certainty, „to do the right thing in a difficult situation“.

Organ donations reached historic lows
Elisabeth Pott, director of the BZgA, referred in this context to a survey, according to which the donation of organs and tissue would increasingly be addressed in the family and friends circle. Accordingly, in 2012, only 59 percent of respondents on the subject, in 2013 there were already 65 percent. Last year, Gröhe's predecessor Daniel Bahr (FDP) had campaigned for more organ donations. At that time, government and federal agency responded to the declining number of organ donors. Their number reached a historic low last year, after 2012 had been uncovered at several university hospitals manipulations in transplants. Only 876 organ donors had been recorded in 2013.

No turnaround in sight
So far this year, no trend reversal is in sight. Although, according to a survey commissioned by BZgA, 68 percent of Germans agreed to donate their organs after death, only 287 deceased donor organs were withdrawn from January to April. According to the German Foundation for Organ Transplantation (DSO) there were still 301 donors in the same period of the previous year. Only 28 percent of Germans have an organ donor card. But despite the declining numbers of organ donors Gröhe does not want to fundamentally change the transplant system. According to the German legal situation only the one to the organ donor, the self or its members of a withdrawal after the death have agreed.

Day of organ donation
The so-called decision-making solution, according to which all insured persons in Germany are asked by their health insurance companies to make a decision on organ donation and to note this on an organ donor card, has been valid since 2012. Even though in recent years there has been repeated calls for organ donations to be binding on all unless they consciously oppose it, such coercion could not be enforced. In Germany, around 11,000 critically ill people are currently waiting for a donor organ. Today, Saturday, June 7th, organ donation will be called for the nationwide day. At the central event in Stuttgart, besides health minister Gröhe, numerous celebrities such as Mary Roos or Laith Al-Deen want to campaign for organ donation. (Ad)