Constitutional law wants organ reform reform

Constitutional law wants reform in organ procurement

09/08/2012

After the recently reported organ donation scandal, the demands are louder, it should be a comprehensive reform by politicians. Constitutional lawyers do not demand the allocation of organs to the doctors alone. It also had to be created for more transparency in transplants in Germany.

The Cologne constitutional lawyer Wolfram Höfling warned in an interview before, the „Organization of donor organs only to the doctors.“ Currently these same „a sick system“. The readjustment of individual „little wheel is little won“, said the legal expert and member of the German Ethics Council. The confidence of the population is no longer producible with the current system, believes Höfling. But just that trust is one „elementary prerequisite for the readiness of organ donation“.

State controls were largely dispensed with
Opposite the „Berlin newspaper“ Höfling reports that in the legal regulations of organ donation „As far as possible an effective control has been waived“. The doctors involved and the policy would have responded to any publicly perceptible scandal only with defense. That's why it's one „big audacity“, when, after the Göttingen and Regensburg incidents, the German Medical Association called for more rights for controls.

According to the constitutional lawyer, there is a fundamental problem because it is „It is a great self-deception to pretend that the question of what are the organs to be awarded is all about medical issues. "Finally, it would also be about how to deal with the few donor organs." These are questions of justice and thus decisions that the legislator must make, not the doctors. "In transplantation medicine, it became clear that the debate was also about distributive justice in medicine, which was still to come.

Ministry of Health currently sees no legislative proposals
The medical profession sees no major problems and sees no manipulation, which would take place regularly. Therefore, they reject more government controls. This was followed by the Federal Ministry of Health. As a spokesman for the ministry said: There is currently no reason for more government supervision. It is not automatically an indication of manipulation, as more and more donated organs are implanted in an accelerated procedure. „Every fourth heart, every third lung and almost every other pancreas is assigned directly from the clinic to a transplantation center“, so the ministry spokesman. The procedure is legitimate if no patient is found for the organ, if the donor of older age or pre-existing conditions suffered. With this method, the loss of the organ should be prevented.

However, critics argue that doctors here have ample opportunity to devalue the organ to direct it, for example, to a paying patient in direct mediation. The health ministry replied that the organ allocation is not on the waiting list and it is „the guidelines of the German Medical Association are“.

Opposition demands more state supervision
The Green parliamentary group leader in the German Bundestag, Renate Künast finds the current regulations insufficient. Künast demanded that the federal government install more state controls. In their view, it requires rigorous and publicly accessible accessible documentation of the cases. In addition, the coordination should be improved and made transparent. In contrast, the Hessian Social Minister Stefan Grüttner (CDU) warned against rash legislative proposals. However, if it turns out that the mistakes can be countered with reforms, this issue should also be tackled.

Doctors reject state controls
On the part of the medical profession further state controls are rejected. The medical director of the University Clinic Freiburg, Dr. Jörg Rüdiger Siewert, an additional state commitment. Instead of state influence, medical committees and scientific societies should develop concepts that increase transparency.

The Chairman of the German Heart Center in Berlin, Dr. med. Roland Hetzer believes that manipulation on a larger scale is out of the question. Nevertheless, the physician acknowledged gaps in terms of the Göttingen scandal and the current regulations. „If someone wants to cheat, then he will succeed, unfortunately“.

Special Session of the Medical Council
Meanwhile, the German Medical Association has invited for a special session for today (Thursday). For this purpose, the supervisory commission for organ transplantation was invited to Berlin. The agenda includes, for example, the accelerated conciliation procedure. The monitoring committees works on behalf of the medical profession, the clinics and health insurances. The Federal Minister of Health Daniel Bahr (FDP) has invited to a second meeting. Here, too, further steps should be discussed. (Sb)

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Picture: Martin Büdenbender