Residents’ organs saved 337 lives

“Give, give, do give, give” your organs. There’s a day for almost everything, and Wednesday is organ donation day. Unlike blood donation, it is not a question of encouraging people to go and have pieces taken that day. No, the Biomedicine Agency intends rather to communicate on the importance of this gesture and especially on the texts which regulate the donation of organs. In Hauts-de-France, we are not so bad even if it is largely possible to do better.

Thanks to the inhabitants of Hauts-de-France, no less than 337 people were saved last year by benefiting from an organ transplant: 27 heart transplants, 86 liver transplants and 224 kidney. Nevertheless, for one of the most populated regions of France, this represents only 6.39% of the total number of transplants carried out in 2021. And when we compare to the number of deaths occurring in the region, around 60,000 in 2020 , we see that more can be done.

We are all presumed donors

Yet, and many are still unaware of it, we are all presumed organ donors. This means that for lack of having clearly expressed his opposition to organ donation, a Frenchman may be removed at his death. Except that this opposition can be made in several ways. Or by registering on a national register consulted by medical teams after death. Or by telling his relatives. And that’s often where it gets stuck, when doctors have to ask the family the question.

To lift this taboo, the Biomedicine Agency encourages dialogue around this subject. It also recalls in a more concrete way that “the removal of organs and tissues is a surgical act carried out with the same care as those performed on a living person” and that everything is done to “so that the appearance of the body does not change”. Note that it is also possible to donate a kidney to a loved one during your lifetime, for example.