Organ shortfall being examined - Switzerland
Swiss Info
Photo: Transplants depend on donors - and their relatives (Keystone)
The government is trying to discover why the Swiss, particularly in the German-speaking area, are reluctant to become organ donors. There are currently over 1,000 patients on waiting lists and 100 die every year for lack of a suitable organ.
Although the number of donations has increased in recent years in the Italian and French-speaking parts of the country, rates in the German-speaking region are stagnating, Franz Immer, the director of Swisstransplant, the national foundation for organ donation, told Swiss radio on Monday.
Under a 2004 law the cantons are supposed to organise and coordinate organ transplants between hospitals and transplant centres.
Each hospital and centre should have someone responsible for coordination, whose duties include taking care of the needs of donors and their relatives, as well as informing the national organ allocation centre. The law also says that medical staff should receive training on the issue.
However, Immer told the radio that these donation support structures had often not been created in the German-speaking area.
Read more
{Register to be an organ,eye and tissue donor. To learn how, www.donatelife.net or www.organdonor.gov}
Photo: Transplants depend on donors - and their relatives (Keystone)
The government is trying to discover why the Swiss, particularly in the German-speaking area, are reluctant to become organ donors. There are currently over 1,000 patients on waiting lists and 100 die every year for lack of a suitable organ.
Although the number of donations has increased in recent years in the Italian and French-speaking parts of the country, rates in the German-speaking region are stagnating, Franz Immer, the director of Swisstransplant, the national foundation for organ donation, told Swiss radio on Monday.
Under a 2004 law the cantons are supposed to organise and coordinate organ transplants between hospitals and transplant centres.
Each hospital and centre should have someone responsible for coordination, whose duties include taking care of the needs of donors and their relatives, as well as informing the national organ allocation centre. The law also says that medical staff should receive training on the issue.
However, Immer told the radio that these donation support structures had often not been created in the German-speaking area.
Read more
{Register to be an organ,eye and tissue donor. To learn how, www.donatelife.net or www.organdonor.gov}
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