At the beginning of the year, the number of donated organs in Germany fell significantly. The need doesn’t go away. In Mainz, those affected expressed their deep gratitude to the donors.
At the “Organ Donation Day” on Saturday in Mainz, those affected campaigned for more willingness to donate. The central event of the nationwide day of action takes place in a different city every year, this year for the 40th time.
Patients on the waiting list, organ recipients and relatives of organ donors had their say under the motto “Time to set an example”.
Transplant recipients showed posters in Mainz that said the number of years of life they had been given by the donation: 527 years were given for 41 people. There were activities throughout the city, an exhibition, a walk-in kidney model and themed tents. In the evening, images and messages should be projected onto buildings.
The aim of the day of action is “to focus on the unspeakable gratitude that we as transplant recipients feel towards those who gave us this great gift of a donor organ,” said Burkhard Tapp, who received a new lung more than 20 years ago.
“Each and every one of us can be dependent on a donor organ tomorrow – be it due to an illness or an accident,” said Federal Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach (SPD) in the run-up to the event. “In principle, organ donation enjoys a high level of acceptance among the population. I hope that the personal declaration will become a matter of course for everyone. »
Lauterbach had announced a new attempt to resolve the objection on Friday. This had failed in the Bundestag about two years ago. “In my view, we absolutely need a new attempt to resolve the contradiction. Otherwise we won’t get the problem solved,” said the minister in the ARD capital studio. The objection solution stipulates that everyone who does not expressly object is in principle an organ donor.
At the beginning of this year, organ donations in Germany collapsed. The number of 239 organ donors nationwide in the first four months was 26 percent lower than in the same period last year, which is attributed to the effects of the corona pandemic. According to the German Foundation for Organ Transplantation (DSO), around 9,000 people are currently on the waiting list.
