Stuttgart (dpa / lsw) - Baden-Württemberg's Health Minister Manne Lucha is concerned about the low number of organ donors and calls for a radical change in the rules that apply in Switzerland. "In a referendum in mid-May, the Swiss voted in favor of this contradiction solution for very good reasons," said the Green politician on Thursday in Stuttgart. The vote in Switzerland in mid-May was a "solidarity with all patients who are urgently waiting for a life-prolonging organ donation". For these people, he wants to initiate a federal political debate for a reform.
So far, in Switzerland as in Germany, the consent solution has been used instead of the objection solution: organs may only be removed from people who have agreed to do so, for example with an organ donor card or an entry in an online register. The register, which is scheduled to start in Germany at the end of the year with a delay, is a core element of a reform that the Bundestag passed in 2020 after a lengthy debate. The opt-out solution, on the other hand, provides that in principle everyone can be considered as an organ donor, unless you expressly object during your lifetime.
At the end of April 2022, 1,046 people from the southwest were on the waiting list for organ donation, according to the ministry. However, the number of organs that are available is falling dramatically. In the first quarter of the year, 750 organs from 239 donors were transplanted in Germany. In the same period of the previous year, there were still 1004 organs from 324 donors. In Baden-Württemberg, on the other hand, the numbers have increased slightly. From January to April there were 40 organ donors (previous year: 34 donors). 120 organs were removed in the first four months of the year (previous year: 110).
