'I'm an organ donor. Are you?'

Organ donation: a matter of life and death

Many men, women and children are affected by diseases for which there are still no effective treatments providing a cure. Despite huge progress, both in transplant medicine and in the prevention of certain diseases, for many patients, human transplants are the only means of survival. Unfortunately, the reality is that many of them will not receive a transplant due to a lack of donor organs.

In 2018, approximately 15,000 patients were on the Eurotransplant waiting list. Eurotransplant is located in the Netherlands and manages transplant matching and distribution for Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Slovenia and Croatia.

Luxembourg residents are default donors

Since the 1982 law on organ donation and human tissue, Luxembourg has had an opt-out clause in place. It is therefore assumed that everyone agrees to donate their organs after their death, unless they have specifically opted out.

In practice however, if there is a potential donor, healthcare professionals always obtain the consent of the deceased's loved ones or family. Unfortunately, many families still refuse.

For this reason, the Ministry of Health, together with Luxembourg-Transplant, has produced an information leaflet on the subject, as well as the compact 'Passeport de Vie' organ donor card, which the holder can use to record their organ donation preferences.

This record of their preferences will make life easier for medical staff, as the transplant procedure is a race against time. It will relieve the heavy emotional burden on families in difficult and often unexpected circumstances.