Wants to remove veto against organ donation

organ donations organ donation humanIllustration of human organs. Photo: pixabay.com

Wants to remove veto against organ donation for relatives

To overcome the growing queue of people in organ queues, a Chief Physician at the hospital in Vestfold wish to remove the relatives’ rights to veto organ donations.

Last year, doctors in Norway received 39 rejections from deceased or their relatives to use organs for transplantations. Since 2009, the number of people waiting for organs has increased from 268 to 430 figures NRK has collected from Oslo University Hospital (UiO), shows.

Persons waiting for kidneys have increased from 173 to 341 in 2018. This is the largest patient group. That 39 vetos were submitted by relatives last year, can, therefore, entail that 78 kidneys could not be harvested to help save lives.

“Whether anybody who dies – and can be used as organ donors – should not be dependent on what the relatives believe to be right,” the Chief Physician Stig Arne Kjellevold at the hospital in Vestfold opinionates.

Undecided potential donors

Today, relatives can deny organ donation in cases where the deceased person has not decided on the question. The Chief Physician understands that it can be easier to say no than yes for an individual relative, who must decide on the question of allowing organ donation while in shock and grief.

Kjellevold believes that the law should be changed so that everyone is a potential donor unless having expressed a factual point of view.

State Secretary in the Ministry of Health and Care Services, Maria Jahrmann Bjerke, fears that fewer people will want to support organ donation if they are forced to donate the organs of a recently deceased close relative.

Instead of coercion, the Ministry will instead work to induce more to sign up as donors.


© NTB Scanpix / #Norway Today
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