Switzerland: organ donation soon facilitated on the mode of presumed consent

From now on, any individual in Switzerland who dies is assumed to be an organ donor.

But the new law will therefore not be enforced.

Benoît Rajau/ Biomedicine Agency

Text by: RFI Follow

1 min

More than 60% of voters said yes, Sunday May 15, 2022, to the principle of presumed consent, as it exists in France or Spain.

The measure should make it possible to remedy the shortage of organ donations in Switzerland, one of the countries furthest behind in Europe on this subject.

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With our Geneva correspondent,

No need to have your donor card in your pocket.

From now on, anyone who dies in Switzerland is supposed to be an organ donor.

The stakes are high: two people die each week in the country, for lack of having obtained an organ for a transplant.

One thousand four hundred people are registered on the waiting lists.

The delay can go up to one year for a heart or a liver, three years for a kidney, and up to seven years in certain cases.

Presumed consent should shorten these time limits.

The subject remains delicate.

The new law will therefore not be enforced: no organ will be removed if relatives know that the deceased person was opposed to it, even without having registered in the national register of refusals.

A particular effort will be put on information campaigns, aimed at the 25% of the population who do not have Swiss nationality, and who do not always speak one of the national languages.

Tourists are also affected.

But again, relatives will be consulted.

►Read also: Organ donations: all concerned, "all donors"

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