District Administrator Dietmar Allgaier encourages the mayors to get involved in this life-saving issue: "Your commitment can help people to receive an organ in time." Information brochures and organ donor cards will be displayed directly in the town hall and registration in an online register for organ donation, which will be available next year, is encouraged. The health department in the Ludwigsburg district office and the patient association "Lebertransplantierte Deutschland e.V." are offering local authorities support with implementation.
The "Act to Strengthen the Willingness to Decide on Organ Donation", which came into force at the beginning of March, obliges town halls to actively draw attention to the possibility of organ donation in future. The shortage of donor organs and the waiting list for organ donation is far too high, with around 9,000 people affected - two to three people die every day before receiving a life-saving organ. "Although 86 percent of people surveyed are in favor of organ donation, less than half of them have an organ donor card," says Dr.
Uschi Traub, Head of Health Promotion at the Health Department of the Ludwigsburg District Office. If every citizen does not inform themselves and, above all, make their own decision, their relatives will have to make this decision in an emergency.
Josef Theiss has been living with a donated liver for 28 years, which has saved his life. He says: "I know from my own experience what it means to wait for a donor organ and not know whether it might not come too late. Yet many could be saved if everyone made a decision and declared their support." Theiss is the contact person at the German Liver Transplant Patients' Association.
At the information event for town hall staff, the organizers will present the law, report on the process of organ donation up to transplantation, talk about their experiences as affected persons and introduce media for education. The speakers are Dr. Christina Schleicher from the German Organ Transplantation Foundation, liver transplant recipients Josef Theiss and Günter Wanner, heart transplant recipient Kerstin Reichert and Dr. Traub from the Ludwigsburg Health Department.
Facts about organ donation
- 8,448 terminally ill patients were on the waiting list for an organ transplant in Germany at the end of 2021
- There were 933 post-mortem organ donors in 2021 (11.2 donors/million inhabitants in Germany)
- 2,979 transplants (excluding living donation) were performed in 2021
- Organs can only be removed after irreversible loss of brain function (brain death) (exception: living donation for kidney and partial liver)
- The personal will to donate organs can be declared with YES or NO
- From the age of 16, a legally valid declaration for organ donation can be made
- This can be documented in an organ donor card and in a living will.
- A register for online declarations is in preparation (from the end of 2022)
- All organs and tissues can be donated or only self-determined ones
- Hardly any illness precludes organ donation
- One donor can save up to 7 lives
- There is no age limit for organ donation
- You cannot decide who receives the organ(s)
- An examination by a doctor is not required for the declaration
- The trade in organs is prohibited by law in Germany (Transplantation Act)
Organ donation information hotline 0800 9040400
