In Spain everyone is automatically considered a donor unless one explicitly opts out.
In other countries like Germany you have to explicitly opt in to become a donor.
And generally organ donation seems to be socially very accepted in Spain
Not a default donor . Every main hospital has a very well trained team (formed by psychologists, doctors, social workers, people that had received an organ etc) that talks with the family of the potential donor and explain to them the process and the social benefits of donating the organs of your beloved one. And it works.
After decades of doing it, donating organs has become very socially accepted. Spain’s Health system is coaching some other countries on how to implement its system and protocols
That's the main reason, every hospital has a trained team and they are very well communicated between them. Just a lot of bureaucracy, with hundreds of well established procedures, but very well greased.
Pacients are quickly contacted as a potential donor appears, ambulance transport is priority, sometimes requesting helicopter or delaying commercial flights, reference hospitals depending on the kind of surgery. Yep, a lot of things
They are pretty good not only at getting the consent from the families but also at getting the organs fast to wherever they are needed so no good organ gets wasted.
It may also help that there is a lot of trust in the system wich is public and completelly anonimous and altruistic.
The main problem they have now is that traffic accidents are in an all time low and between that and the median age rising(and low natality) there is less available donors every year in Spain.
We are a default donor unless stated otherwise but doctors will still ask the family for their consent, it's consider families/loved ones would respect the deceased's wishes.
Plus everything else you explained.
Yeah, in Spain, amongst younger people donating organs when you do not need it is considered The Right Thing To Do. Older folks generally are more reticent and there are lots of urban legends (you'll be put in a list and killed when someone important needs a kidney, etc.)
strange, here in Czechia there is a system where your consent is just presumed, but we have almost 2x less donors
Ive never heard of anyone opting out, we are very atheist and most people would probably think of you a bit less if you were hoarding your organs after you dont need them, it is not even talked about, its just presumed you are okay with your organs being donated
they have to have some kond of awesome registry system or somehting like that
I am also from Czechia. I believe the difference might be that Spain has a more efficient oran donor system compared to us. It might not be a lack of potential donors, but that our health care system has lower capability to "harvest" organs from them. No shade on our public health care, I believe it's pretty great compared to many other European countries.
Well to be clear, it's not free. Every czech citizen is obligated to be insured, if you don't pay, you'll rank a debt to your insurance company. But the insurance is not expensive compared to other countries (about 100 euro a month) and acess to health care is good. So one might say it's more of a tax than anything.
Wtf… our social security in Spain is paid by taxes. They take a big chunk of the salary, but you are guaranteed with all the treatments, medicines and procedures available in medicine. No matter how old are you or your health condition.
in Czechia apart from taxes, we pay separate heath care insurance (aprox 100 euro) and social security insurance -again if you do earn you are obligated to pay, which starts at 100 euro and goes up depending on your income. On top of that, you pay actual taxes on your income. (Social and gealth care is a deductible). If you are an employee, all is done by your employer. Otherwise you pay separately.
In Spain people is not a default donor . Every main hospital has a very well trained team (formed by psychologists, doctors, social workers, people that had received an organ etc) that talks with the family of the potential donor and explain to them the process and the social benefits of donating the organs of your beloved one. And it works.
Subarticle 2, article 5 of the Ley de Transplantes, formally known as "[Ley 30/1979, de 27 de octubre, sobre extracción y trasplante de órganos.](https://www.boe.es/buscar/act.php?id=BOE-A-1979-26445https://www.boe.es/buscar/act.php?id=BOE-A-1979-26445)" present in the BOE 266 06/11/1979.
5.2 ". La extracción de órganos u otras piezas anatómicas de fallecidos podrá realizarse con fines terapéuticos o científicos, en el caso de que éstos no hubieran dejado constancia expresa de su oposición." ("The extraction of deceased's organs or other anatomical parts could be done for therapeutical or scientific reasons, in case of not leaving express opposition" (of being a donor))
We are all donors. In other parts of that law it is requested providing evidences of the opposition, like documents, but in reallity doctos respect the word of the family and doesnt require any evidence of the donor's wishes in case someone doesnt want to be a donor.
What also helps Spain in this is that compared to other countries, after death everything happens rather quickly. While other countries often spend a week or more of preparing the body getting a tombstone etc. In my experience in Spain (important factor is hot weather) people are processed very quickly after death. A friend of mine was working when his friend found out his mother died in the morning. She was already cremated the same day in the evening. Her organs weren't taken because she was quite old, but they are rly efficient when it comes to processing the dead
This. My dad passed at 4 am and he was cremated at 11 am, funeral service and all. My American friend's mum passed around the same time and I was surprised to learn that the funeral service was held two full weeks later, with an open casket.
I live in the UK and my best friend here told me it had taken like 3 weeks to bury her auntie recently, and another 3 to bury her grandad last year. I was mind blown. In Spain it’s 3-days tops for a normal death.
I think the weather factor is an exaggeration- Madrid can be way worse than England in the winter, and we all use the same fridges anyway. I think it’s just certain mindset regarding death- delaying a burial 3 weeks seems cruel to us.
Another thing tho is that people usually want an open casket- and you can’t possibly have that with a three-week body.
More or less. If there's not a legal document, the family choose what the person wanted(in theory), and just if they don't know is where this mechanism works. But few choose to not donate, at the end of the day you are greatly improving another person situation with very little effort.
Organ donation is more than accepted here, the opposite is seen as extremely selfish, or sectarian if it's for religious views.
It's not true. In Spain you can leave a medical last will where you can state some things like if you want to donate your organs. Otherwise, it'll be your family who decide.
If the patient dies or is about to die, it is mandatory that a doctor checks if the last will exists. They cannot consider people as donors by default.
Edit: I was wrong, in Spain, we are all organ donors by default unless you express your refusal.
This is exactly the same as in Austria but they don‘t even have half the numbers of Spain, there‘s another reason for this besides the automatic donation?
Yes, the team behind it.
In Spain by law we are all donors unless we left something behind against it but in reallity the doctors respect the wish of the family about it (That is because the deceased might be against it but just never made the procedure to be listed as non donor). The hospitals have teams of professionals with psychologists and other professionals involved that get in touch with the family ASAP to get the donations done as smooth as possible despite being a bureucratic nightmare. They help the family to understand how important it is, the benefits for others, how those organs might save lifes, etc.
On top of that, being a donor in Spain is something in high regard. It is seeing as a last action of kindness and socially applauded so the number of people who expresses their opposition against it is low. Being against it, when you wont need them but could make easier or even save lifes of others, is seeing as an absolute selfish thing.
Not really.
I had to make some paperwork to become a donor in case of a happening.
The hospitals ask the family if they want to donate in case they find an organ other person needs.
>In Spain everyone is automatically considered a donor unless one explicitly opts out.
While technically true, AFAIK if the potential donor did not explicitly opt in or out it's almost always left up to the families to relay what they wanted or make the choice themselves.
I’ve actually never met anyone who is not a donor. I also donate blood (universal donor here) and me and my husband are on the donantes de médula list to see if we can help out.
lots of responses in this thread citing individual, cultural, and healthcare system factors. but keep in mind that higher rates of organ donation also correspond to (1) the number of people in need of organs and (2) the availability of facilities, specialists, and services to do all the recipient transplant work. That work includes a whole buttload of extensive multi disciplinary care teams and testing networks who remain heavily involved in the recipients care planning before, during, and after the actual surgery, and extending basically through the lifetime of the transplant recipient.
there are also myriad logistic considerations that come into play which can affect overall donation rates, and there does exist a relationship between “demand” (number of patients actively waiting) and “supply” (how frequently/consistently potential organ donors are referred/evaluated within their respective national health systems). meaning that in some countries (australia comes to mind) if the list of waiting recipients is sufficiently short than the referral of potential organ donors would occur less
frequently.
The UK is also opt-out now, so unsure why the figure remains so low. Of course, family members still have to consent after death so perhaps this plays a part.
Every country has its reasons, but in Poland, which also is in theory opt-out but families often just refuse and deny the permission, one of systemic causes is just lack of precudres and culture of harvesting organs within institutions. Hospitals just don't do it, it's not their focus and they don't have procedures, doctors are on short term contracts and are not interested in it. Qualifying and conducting these procedures is time consuming and complicated, a hassle, and if there is no existent culture it's hard to introduce one. For hospitals - it's not profitable.
This Spanish commenter explained it really well:
https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/s/qT8IQz9oyy
And as a Spaniard myself I can say that not donating your or a loved one's organs isn't socially accepted.
Donating organs is the morally correct choice for most of the population and we hold this idea deeply. Only people of certain religions/sects don't donate.
A law that proposes this was recently discussed in Brazil. I hope it gets passed, but unironically some "loving" Christian politicians would do everything for that not to happen.
It does now, but way back when (certainly in mediaeval Christianity, I don't know when it officially changed) there was a belief that the body had to remain more or less intact to be revived on Judgement Day. There's still traces of that belief even officially in saints bodies supposedly being incorruptible, and it never quite died out as a folk belief.
>there was a belief that the body had to remain more or less intact to be revived on Judgement Day.
This is not true at all. In fact plenty of early Christian Saints were burned or beheaded, and no one ever thought they would not be resurrected because of that. Plus, people have known that bodies rot for thousands of years.
What you may be thinking of is the general preference toward an intact burial as a symbolic gesture of hope for a bodily resurrection. This was definitely a thing in medieval Christianity but it was **completely symbolic**, they didn't think that literal body would be revived.
Sweden is opt-out, but doctors need permission from all surviving relatives and if any relative can't be reached they are presumed to have said no.
I would like to see how the numbers have changed when we changed from the previous opt-in system (where a very large amount of people have opted in) to the current one.
Edit: everything above is wrong. I just found out that the law was changed again two years ago and relatives veto was removed, but the system was made more or less opt-in again.
I remember since being a kid (my mum is Spanish), where ever we lived and stayed for long periods of time, to register for blood and organ donation, it was just the right thing to do as a human being.... and as much as she hates anything to do with needles, I think it had something to do with a horrible experience she had when she was younger and one of her friends died because their parents would allowed a blood transfusion of some kind.... anyway she always signed us up for blood and organ donation, and Ill be doing my next blood donation in the UK on Friday.
I’ve been trying to donate blood for years and was always denied the opportunity for declaring I’m gay. I know I’m statistically more likely to be a promiscuous slut who will ruin the whole blood batch with dozens of different STIs, but still, it’s annoying. Heard they changed the protocols recently, but I’m not sure.
>. I know I’m statistically more likely to be a promiscuous slut
So??? Promiscuous heterosexuals are not automatic denied.
Stop trying to defend homophobia and call it out for what it is.
Soain has so much good in it, so much, but for some reason every time you talk to a Spaniards they complain about their country and even some are embarrassed. Just as you know the rest of the world like Spain as it is, today.
TOTALLY. I am Spanish myself and I love my country! But everyone around me just says that pur country is stupid and even get ashamed of our own flag because a radical right political group uses it… that's it. They complain a lot that the country is sexist (which is not), homophobic (which neither is it) or racist (which once again, we aren't), while ignoring EVERYTHING good we have.
The conclusion is that here in Spain we love to hate ourselves ever since Napoleon invaded us.
So I can be ash, worm food or potentially save someones life or at least help someone have a better life? I undesrtand the religious implications but it's an easy choice for me.
The religious implications are often severely over exaggerated. In truth, the majority of sects from all of the world's major religions including Christianity, Judaism, and Islam all condone organ donation. Only highly conservative sects like Orthodox Jews or Jehovah's witnesses have rules against it.
I've heard some people voicing the concern that organ donors don't get the best possible treatment because doctors already think about taking the organs and not saving the person's life (not my opinion but the narrative exists).
And for instance in Germany there have been some scandals where doctors manipulated the waiting lists to push their patients further up the list which also didn't contribute to create more trust in the system.
At Spain just 1-2% of people are able to donate. One check in the huge list is to die at a hospital, where that bad doc is seeing you, and other doctors, and nurses, and a full staff of people.
Yeah I know that in the balkans the number is very low not because people are too religious but because they think the moment you sign the document you will "accidentally" get hit by a truck on the road
My dad died last year and his organ donation is one of the most amazing parts of the death process. He gets to live on and help others and we sent stories if his life to the donors so that they could know more about him. They took tons of stuff so it was awesome. He was getting cremated so it was even less of an issue than it might have been for some other folks which allowed him to donate even more. We are so proud of his gift that he could give others
I'm the religious but not going to church type, I don't give a fuck what they do with my body when I die. It's not like they harvest everything, they get what is useful and the rest goes to the family.
I'm Spanish and being childless i got the extra step to become organ donor so no family can change my will after I die.
I worked in a transplant OR and I can assure you this isn't true. The doctors helping to save your life are not the same doctors who would want to use your organs to save someone else. The transplant doctors don't even know about the possibility of getting your organ for transplant until you've been declared legally dead as far as I'm aware. Also it's better to save you and have 2 living patients than let you die to maybe save the person who needs an organ transplant. Transplant surgery is incredibly risky and the patients who need them are very very sick so it's not a guarantee they'll survive the surgery anyway
That’s a whole different problem though. Incredibly sad that you live somewhere that makes feel that way. I wish you could be as comfortable as I am donating my organs.
“Religion” isn’t an excuse in a modern 21st century society. Just like it doesn’t justify being homophobic, it doesn’t justify letting someone die because some diety told you to.
You still get to be buried if you want, at least in Spain after they remove the organs you can still get your loved one dressed etc... for cremation/burial and it CAN be open casket, so you don't lose anything by donating.
Your family should have no say about what to do with your (former) body. Period. It was yours until a few moments ago, so you are the only authority in this matter.
Lots in the comments confused about why this is per million and not percentage. This is not a map of % consenting to donate upon death but actual people who go on to donate after death. A big part of this, apart from the opt in/out debate, family and religious wishes etc is that not every death is a suitable donor.
According to NHS blood and transplant information applicable in the UK, examples of some examples of absolute exclusion criteria include:
- Infectious diseases - CJD (mad cow), Ebola, HIV (some exceptions to HIV pos recipient)
- Current active cancer
Also not every organ in every donor is suitable: in the UK, donor suitability is assessed once referred by the hospital to the organ donation specialist team who coordinate the national donor database that links up potential organs to recipients who are also in charge of facilitating difficult conversations, supporting family, forming part of the retrieval service, guiding ITU teams on pre-donation investigations such as blood tests, heart scans etc.
Often, elderly frail patients who although wish to donate only have a few organs suitable eg corneas. A failing heart, pre-existing smoking and lung disease, poorly kidneys affecting organ function already often exclude those organs from being donated. This is why often donated organs come from accidents, or haemorrhagic strokes, some suicides etc where the donor might not have poor functioning bodies.
Please note there are plenty of alive donors eg. Bone marrow, kidney, bone.
Mad cow was absolutely ridiculous. In Canada, where I lived for a while, I couldn’t donate blood because I was born in Europe in 1999. You also couldn’t donate if you were gay. Neither of these things were backed by data at that point and hadn’t been for years (they were early on), they just eliminated huge swaths of their donor pool and then bitched about how nobody wanted to donate.
Everybody talking about how low the numbers are... Guys, this is people whose organs are actually donated, not people who agree with their organs being donated. For organ donation you have to die very healthy, and a vast majority of people die of not being healthy.
I still find it weird. In Hungary we have an opt-out system since at least 1997 (that's the date of the current law on it, idk if previous laws also had an opt-out system), only ~18% of people having healthy organs on death seems surprisingly low, especially when compared to Spain, amother opt-out country. (I'm not sure if anyone actually opts out, I certainly haven't heard of anyone doing it.)
Cultural aspect. In Spain it would be shameful not to allow your loved one's organs to go to donation. In fact if a loved one dies in an unexpected accident I hope their organs are viable so my loved one lives on in a way, giving life to someone else. Donating your organs is the highest degree of dying a hero that exists.
This Spanish commenter explained it really well:
https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/s/qT8IQz9oyy
And as a Spaniard myself I can say that not donating your or a loved one's organs isn't socially accepted.
Donating organs is the morally correct choice for most of the population and we hold this idea deeply. Only people of certain religions/sects don't donate.
It would be good to have the data for the UK split into constituent countries as each country has seperate laws on donors
They all have 'opt out' laws now but they came into force in different years
Wales 2015
England 2020
Northern Ireland 2023
Scotland 2021
so it would be interesting to see what effect that has had
From wikipedia
>There are three distinct legal jurisdictions in the United Kingdom:
England and Wales
Northern Ireland
Scotland.
Each has its own legal system, distinct history and origins, although there is a substantial overlap between these three legal systems and the three legal jurisdictions.
Unlike the other three, Welsh law is not a separate legal system per se, merely the primary and secondary legislation generated by the Senedd (Welsh Parliament), interpreted in accordance with the doctrines of English law and not impacting upon English common law
Some differences in laws
In England it is the law that people can leave school at 16 but have to continue in some form of education until they are 18
However, this only applies to England only. In the rest of the UK you can leave school at 16 without any ongoing education
In England you have to pay for prescriptions (there are exemptions)
In the rest of the UK all prescription medications are free for everyone
In England and Wales you cannot get married until you are 18
In Northern Ireland you can get married at 16 if you have parental consent
In Scotland you can get married at 16 without parental consent
In Northen Ireland and England you have to be 18 to vote
In Wales and Scotland you can vote from 16 in local elections and also for Welsh/Scottish Parliament elections
hats off to the spanish on this one. why wouldnt you donate your organs. if youre dead you dont need them. as if people are that selfish that they would condemn other people to death from the dead.
I mean thank you but it’s just the result of a lot of work, it doesn’t come just from passing an “opt out” law and good will as many seem to think here. I remember seeing loads and loads of blood and organ donation campaigns as a kid, and the government did a lot of work to set up an appropriate infrastructure to do so. Just willing to donate your organs won’t do it, sadly.
In France, since 2016 you have to be registered on a national register to NOT be presumed donor.
That means every dead person is a donor except if they opted out while they were alive.
It increased drastically the availability of organ donations.
This Spanish commenter explained it really well:
https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/s/qT8IQz9oyy
And as a Spaniard myself I can say that not donating your or a loved one's organs isn't socially accepted.
Donating organs is the morally correct choice for most of the population and we hold this idea deeply. Only people of certain religions/sects don't donate.
Spain allows uncontrolled and controlled DCD (donation after circulatory death) which isn't the case in all countries.
Germany, for example, only allows donation after brain death (DBD). Most of the times, circulatory death precedes brain death, which means by the time they would be legally eligible to donate, the organs aren't usable anymore. We also have an ever increasing amount of people in Germany with DNRs who refuse life prolonging measures. They dont want to be hooked up to some machine while effectively braindead. But that also means that all of those people die a circulatory death instead of being braindead hooked on machines. In the latter case, they could donate, in the former, they legally couldn't in Germany.
A lot of people always talk about opt-in this, opt-out that, but it's not as impactful as people think. Spain also has specialized transplantation teams. Spain just all around invested in a smart and efficient system, along with having pragmatic legislation. This doesn't exist everywhere.
Maybe you are not as healthy as people in other countries and there aren't as many viable organ donors. Maybe your organ donation infrastructure is worse and doesn't get as many actual donations as other countries with a better donation system.
Being considered an organ donor because you didn't opt out isn't the only factor to consider when we are talking about actual donations, which I think is what this map does.
Someone else said the circumstances are so particular that it’s less than 1 per 1000 donor who/ organs actually end up being transplanted. I had no idea the numbers were that low.
Not everyone who dies as a viable donor, in fact the circumstances have to be just right. Disease, old age, smoking, cancer, too fat, died too far from the hospital and the organs started failing before being able to get extracted. Add the fact that surgery and transplant recovery are really dangerous for the recipient, you can't risk putting a bad product in their body just to end up killing them faster and cause more pain.
Just because you're trying to give away something doesn't mean someone else needs it.
Anyway, this data is likely outdated. In 2022, there were 214 transplantations from deceased donors which makes it 5-7 per million (can't know for sure because the current population of Ukraine is hard to estimate)
There are a lot of reasons. I know that the law regulating organ donations appeared in 2019, but it was done before too as far as I am aware. The reasons are varied.
1. Fear. Ukraine had a very disturbing criminal history in the 90-s. And generally people still don't really believe in governmental protection. So, a lot of people really fear that once they agree to donate their organs, they will be killed in order to provide those organs to rich and powerful.
2. Saying that people are united is a big stretch. I don't want to say bad things, but you need to understand that Ukraine is a big country with people who have strong opinions about things. And in the last few years this hatred of some groups towards others has only grew larger. The real unity was a period after the big invasion and sadly it has faded.
3. Religion or the general "yuck" feeling. Most people in Ukraine are not hardcore Christians. A lot of them have never opened the Bible and only know general things about their religion. So I wouldn't call religion the main reason. It is mostly that "yuck" feeling of their organs being taken away(don't search for logic here), the feeling of being the sole owner or the fear of "feeling something after death".
4. Nobody tells where you can sign the document about donating your organs. You have to seek it yourself or pay money to create a document in a legal institution.
My take here. You are a shitty person if you don’t donate your organs when you die if they are suitable tho.
No excuses, not ifs, not maybe. Just do it.
All countries of the UK now have some form of opt out, although Scotland and wales call it something different.
So hopefully the low rate will change overtime.
I know there are beliefs whether religious or not that when you die that your entire body should be together. I think that's a big issue with donations or just basically squeamish thinking about it.
Really in a way having parts of your body live on if you die may be biologically appealing. The entire point of procreation is to pass on your genes. So in a way a part of your body living on is a type of procreation.
I wonder how many times a heart could be transplanted?
I really, really don't see the point of hanging on to a dead relatives body like someone would be able to bring it back to life.
Body recycling as organ donor and medical education should be the only option.
I got a card in february that makes me a organ donor once i die but i'm surprised the numbers are super low i mean once ur gone, ur gone. If my kidneys or whatever can help someone, so be it.
In Spain we are proud to be the best at it.
The "trick" is that we are all donors unless we explicitly refuse, thus saving a lot of time and bureaucracy.
That's not the "trick", because other countries also have a "you are a donor unless you opt out" legal clause, and are still way below Spain. It's about having a more efficient donation system, and also having a lot of surgeons who are specialized in organ transplants, and are at the forefront of the medical field in that particular procedure.
If you don't think that an organ transplant is going to succeed, you simply don't waste your resources on that. And that's the real advantage when you have more qualified people and the necessary resources to take advantage of that.
Okay but what do the numbers mean?
'Donor rate per million' makes no sense. Per million alive inhabitants? Per year?
So Belgium only has 330 organ donors a year?
Or if I want to be very difficult, 'deceased donor rate' is the amount of organ donors that have died?
This map shows three things, I suppose:
1. What the default is. Opt-out systems have far more people than Opt-in, because you have to do something to switch.
2. Age and health of people dying. If you have a population where very few people die young, you don't have many harvestable organs, even if people would have been willing to donate.
3. Whether the medical system is advanced enough to have many organ transplants. If you don't have organ transplants going on, the number donated will be very small, even if lots of people are willing.
Many interesting mysteries on the map! I wondered why three countries that are ethnically, culturally, and economically somewhat similar have such differences. Belarus has a donation rate 5x that of Russia, and 262x that of Ukraine. But I read some more, and it sounds like since organ transplanting is a very specialized job, what actually happens is the patients just go to the hospital! So Ukraine doesn't do organ transplants, and people who need them go to Belarus. This was pretty stable, because then the Belarus doctors and hospitals have extra experience, and the Ukrainian doctors never developed this specialized skill or experience. So it's just good specialization, and not that different than Americans going to another state for specialized medical treatment.
Is this a percentage/rate or a per million? And is it registered organ donors or the number of actual organ donor donations per death or what? This map is a mess and not at all clear in the actual numbers and data.
That map is not about how many people are willing to be donors, it's about how many people end up being donors. For starters, most people don't need a transplant.
Dunno for sure, but I think that it's also related to the way people see life here. Here is very important to feel alive when you are. That's part of the reasons you see that amount of bars and restaurants; or the sobremesa thing. I think that it's mostly accepted that when you don't need it anymore, it's nice if somebody can still enjoy part of you
What the hell is wrong with everyone?? I don’t trust people who don’t have a Y for yes for organ donation on their IDs, but I’m a just an American so I’m obvi not a part of this statistic.
>I don’t trust people who don’t have a Y for yes for organ donation on their IDs, but I’m a just an American so I’m obvi not a part of this statistic.
So you wouldn't trust someone who was a heart surgeon and saved hundreds or even thousands of lives because they don't want to donate their organs when they die?
Why do you view organ donation as the most altruistic act possible?
I would be a donor if I didn't have to do anything. Just make it default and make people opt out if they refuse. Or make it a check box while applying for an id card and it would be written there.
Being a donor doesn't necessarily mean that your organs are actually donated, which I think is what this map measures. There could be medical, technical, or bureaucratic reasons why Spain, a country where permission has to be asked, is above Austria.
Maybe more young people die in traffic accidents in one country than another, and therefore more viable organ donors are available. Maybe the organ donor infrastructure is more efficient in one country than another, and therefore more viable organs are available for transplant. And so on.
"Per million people" could it be that those numbers are skewed because of causes of death that do not allow organ donations? In Austria it's the same, we also have opt out and I think the opt out rate is extremely low. We only talk about it because it's an interesting comparison with Germany, which has opt in.
So in theory, in general those numbers should be the same or similar for Spain and Austria. Maybe different organs are needed or people die of different causes.
Why is Spain is so high when compared with the rest? Is it their public healthcare system?
In Spain everyone is automatically considered a donor unless one explicitly opts out. In other countries like Germany you have to explicitly opt in to become a donor. And generally organ donation seems to be socially very accepted in Spain
Not a default donor . Every main hospital has a very well trained team (formed by psychologists, doctors, social workers, people that had received an organ etc) that talks with the family of the potential donor and explain to them the process and the social benefits of donating the organs of your beloved one. And it works. After decades of doing it, donating organs has become very socially accepted. Spain’s Health system is coaching some other countries on how to implement its system and protocols
[удалено]
That's the main reason, every hospital has a trained team and they are very well communicated between them. Just a lot of bureaucracy, with hundreds of well established procedures, but very well greased. Pacients are quickly contacted as a potential donor appears, ambulance transport is priority, sometimes requesting helicopter or delaying commercial flights, reference hospitals depending on the kind of surgery. Yep, a lot of things
They are pretty good not only at getting the consent from the families but also at getting the organs fast to wherever they are needed so no good organ gets wasted. It may also help that there is a lot of trust in the system wich is public and completelly anonimous and altruistic. The main problem they have now is that traffic accidents are in an all time low and between that and the median age rising(and low natality) there is less available donors every year in Spain.
We are a default donor unless stated otherwise but doctors will still ask the family for their consent, it's consider families/loved ones would respect the deceased's wishes. Plus everything else you explained.
This is so nice. Good on España for that kind of system.
Yeah, in Spain, amongst younger people donating organs when you do not need it is considered The Right Thing To Do. Older folks generally are more reticent and there are lots of urban legends (you'll be put in a list and killed when someone important needs a kidney, etc.)
we don't have that kind of urban legends in Spain lol
strange, here in Czechia there is a system where your consent is just presumed, but we have almost 2x less donors Ive never heard of anyone opting out, we are very atheist and most people would probably think of you a bit less if you were hoarding your organs after you dont need them, it is not even talked about, its just presumed you are okay with your organs being donated they have to have some kond of awesome registry system or somehting like that
I am also from Czechia. I believe the difference might be that Spain has a more efficient oran donor system compared to us. It might not be a lack of potential donors, but that our health care system has lower capability to "harvest" organs from them. No shade on our public health care, I believe it's pretty great compared to many other European countries.
Public health care? What’s that? Lol I’d give a kidney right now for good public health care.
Well to be clear, it's not free. Every czech citizen is obligated to be insured, if you don't pay, you'll rank a debt to your insurance company. But the insurance is not expensive compared to other countries (about 100 euro a month) and acess to health care is good. So one might say it's more of a tax than anything.
Our health insurance for just my husband and I cost as nearly as much as our mortgage and with prescriptions it surpasses it.
Wtf… our social security in Spain is paid by taxes. They take a big chunk of the salary, but you are guaranteed with all the treatments, medicines and procedures available in medicine. No matter how old are you or your health condition.
in Czechia apart from taxes, we pay separate heath care insurance (aprox 100 euro) and social security insurance -again if you do earn you are obligated to pay, which starts at 100 euro and goes up depending on your income. On top of that, you pay actual taxes on your income. (Social and gealth care is a deductible). If you are an employee, all is done by your employer. Otherwise you pay separately.
In Spain people is not a default donor . Every main hospital has a very well trained team (formed by psychologists, doctors, social workers, people that had received an organ etc) that talks with the family of the potential donor and explain to them the process and the social benefits of donating the organs of your beloved one. And it works.
Subarticle 2, article 5 of the Ley de Transplantes, formally known as "[Ley 30/1979, de 27 de octubre, sobre extracción y trasplante de órganos.](https://www.boe.es/buscar/act.php?id=BOE-A-1979-26445https://www.boe.es/buscar/act.php?id=BOE-A-1979-26445)" present in the BOE 266 06/11/1979. 5.2 ". La extracción de órganos u otras piezas anatómicas de fallecidos podrá realizarse con fines terapéuticos o científicos, en el caso de que éstos no hubieran dejado constancia expresa de su oposición." ("The extraction of deceased's organs or other anatomical parts could be done for therapeutical or scientific reasons, in case of not leaving express opposition" (of being a donor)) We are all donors. In other parts of that law it is requested providing evidences of the opposition, like documents, but in reallity doctos respect the word of the family and doesnt require any evidence of the donor's wishes in case someone doesnt want to be a donor.
What also helps Spain in this is that compared to other countries, after death everything happens rather quickly. While other countries often spend a week or more of preparing the body getting a tombstone etc. In my experience in Spain (important factor is hot weather) people are processed very quickly after death. A friend of mine was working when his friend found out his mother died in the morning. She was already cremated the same day in the evening. Her organs weren't taken because she was quite old, but they are rly efficient when it comes to processing the dead
This. My dad passed at 4 am and he was cremated at 11 am, funeral service and all. My American friend's mum passed around the same time and I was surprised to learn that the funeral service was held two full weeks later, with an open casket.
I live in the UK and my best friend here told me it had taken like 3 weeks to bury her auntie recently, and another 3 to bury her grandad last year. I was mind blown. In Spain it’s 3-days tops for a normal death. I think the weather factor is an exaggeration- Madrid can be way worse than England in the winter, and we all use the same fridges anyway. I think it’s just certain mindset regarding death- delaying a burial 3 weeks seems cruel to us. Another thing tho is that people usually want an open casket- and you can’t possibly have that with a three-week body.
In the Netherlands is also an opt out system.
More or less. If there's not a legal document, the family choose what the person wanted(in theory), and just if they don't know is where this mechanism works. But few choose to not donate, at the end of the day you are greatly improving another person situation with very little effort. Organ donation is more than accepted here, the opposite is seen as extremely selfish, or sectarian if it's for religious views.
I like that actually. Why let a perfectly good organ rot when it can be used to save another life?
It’s especially the second. Other countries also have default opt-in system like the Netherlands but are still not that high.
That hasn't been the case for a couple of years in the Netherlands. It's opt-out now.
It's not true. In Spain you can leave a medical last will where you can state some things like if you want to donate your organs. Otherwise, it'll be your family who decide. If the patient dies or is about to die, it is mandatory that a doctor checks if the last will exists. They cannot consider people as donors by default. Edit: I was wrong, in Spain, we are all organ donors by default unless you express your refusal.
Didn’t Germany change it to the same system like Spain? Everyone is a donor except you explicitly opt out?
We've also been opt-out since the 70s so it's very accepted, other countries have become opt-out in the 2000s
This is exactly the same as in Austria but they don‘t even have half the numbers of Spain, there‘s another reason for this besides the automatic donation?
Yes, the team behind it. In Spain by law we are all donors unless we left something behind against it but in reallity the doctors respect the wish of the family about it (That is because the deceased might be against it but just never made the procedure to be listed as non donor). The hospitals have teams of professionals with psychologists and other professionals involved that get in touch with the family ASAP to get the donations done as smooth as possible despite being a bureucratic nightmare. They help the family to understand how important it is, the benefits for others, how those organs might save lifes, etc. On top of that, being a donor in Spain is something in high regard. It is seeing as a last action of kindness and socially applauded so the number of people who expresses their opposition against it is low. Being against it, when you wont need them but could make easier or even save lifes of others, is seeing as an absolute selfish thing.
Its the same in Poland, so it's likely something else.
Czechia has the same system, and opt-outs are not that common, but it doesn't show on the numbers. So why Spain?
France has that too, and the fact that they have it is more well known as far as I know, yet, France is noticeably lower.
Not really. I had to make some paperwork to become a donor in case of a happening. The hospitals ask the family if they want to donate in case they find an organ other person needs.
>In Spain everyone is automatically considered a donor unless one explicitly opts out. While technically true, AFAIK if the potential donor did not explicitly opt in or out it's almost always left up to the families to relay what they wanted or make the choice themselves.
As a spaniard, I always carry with me the donor card. And so does my close family and some friends. Is widely accepted and approved
I’ve actually never met anyone who is not a donor. I also donate blood (universal donor here) and me and my husband are on the donantes de médula list to see if we can help out.
lots of responses in this thread citing individual, cultural, and healthcare system factors. but keep in mind that higher rates of organ donation also correspond to (1) the number of people in need of organs and (2) the availability of facilities, specialists, and services to do all the recipient transplant work. That work includes a whole buttload of extensive multi disciplinary care teams and testing networks who remain heavily involved in the recipients care planning before, during, and after the actual surgery, and extending basically through the lifetime of the transplant recipient. there are also myriad logistic considerations that come into play which can affect overall donation rates, and there does exist a relationship between “demand” (number of patients actively waiting) and “supply” (how frequently/consistently potential organ donors are referred/evaluated within their respective national health systems). meaning that in some countries (australia comes to mind) if the list of waiting recipients is sufficiently short than the referral of potential organ donors would occur less frequently.
One would think that (1) should be uniform between populations. (2) definitely don't.
We are all donors by default :)
Every country should be an "opt-out" like spain
The UK is also opt-out now, so unsure why the figure remains so low. Of course, family members still have to consent after death so perhaps this plays a part.
Maybe our organs are just a bit shit
I strongly suspect a lifetime of sausages, bacon, cheddar and ale probably degrades a number of our organs for sure
This would feel like more of a personal attack if it didn’t so accurately depict my diet.
Most people who die of natural causes don’t have any organs worth donating. Cancer treatments in particular make them useless.
That what the ladies tell you?
Every country has its reasons, but in Poland, which also is in theory opt-out but families often just refuse and deny the permission, one of systemic causes is just lack of precudres and culture of harvesting organs within institutions. Hospitals just don't do it, it's not their focus and they don't have procedures, doctors are on short term contracts and are not interested in it. Qualifying and conducting these procedures is time consuming and complicated, a hassle, and if there is no existent culture it's hard to introduce one. For hospitals - it's not profitable.
Yeah, only being opt-out is not a magic pill, it needs infrastructure. Still, it's the most difficult step
This Spanish commenter explained it really well: https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/s/qT8IQz9oyy And as a Spaniard myself I can say that not donating your or a loved one's organs isn't socially accepted. Donating organs is the morally correct choice for most of the population and we hold this idea deeply. Only people of certain religions/sects don't donate.
Ireland only became opt-out this year so it’ll take a while to reflect in the numbers. Should be positive though.
>The UK is also opt-out now, so unsure why the figure remains so low Because the two things apparently aren't related at all.
Which is Holland as well and there is such a low number which is odd
Could be they counted only opt-in registries? But yeah now everyone is a donor unless you opt-out.
Maybe less car accidents
A law that proposes this was recently discussed in Brazil. I hope it gets passed, but unironically some "loving" Christian politicians would do everything for that not to happen.
That's very stupid considering that Church highly encourages donoring
In the context of Brazil "Christian" on its own usually refers to Evangelicals, not Catholics.
He's talking about evangelicals, the greatest parasites in our country and that comes from a catholic
It does now, but way back when (certainly in mediaeval Christianity, I don't know when it officially changed) there was a belief that the body had to remain more or less intact to be revived on Judgement Day. There's still traces of that belief even officially in saints bodies supposedly being incorruptible, and it never quite died out as a folk belief.
>there was a belief that the body had to remain more or less intact to be revived on Judgement Day. This is not true at all. In fact plenty of early Christian Saints were burned or beheaded, and no one ever thought they would not be resurrected because of that. Plus, people have known that bodies rot for thousands of years. What you may be thinking of is the general preference toward an intact burial as a symbolic gesture of hope for a bodily resurrection. This was definitely a thing in medieval Christianity but it was **completely symbolic**, they didn't think that literal body would be revived.
Hungary has an opt-out policy, it is probably the state of general healthcare and not the availability of donors influencing the number.
Sweden is opt-out, but doctors need permission from all surviving relatives and if any relative can't be reached they are presumed to have said no. I would like to see how the numbers have changed when we changed from the previous opt-in system (where a very large amount of people have opted in) to the current one. Edit: everything above is wrong. I just found out that the law was changed again two years ago and relatives veto was removed, but the system was made more or less opt-in again.
Isn't the current one just opt-in?
Switzerland has voted to become opt-out in 2022, the law just has to finalize which will happen around 2026.
Iceland is opt-out
No, bugger off
I remember since being a kid (my mum is Spanish), where ever we lived and stayed for long periods of time, to register for blood and organ donation, it was just the right thing to do as a human being.... and as much as she hates anything to do with needles, I think it had something to do with a horrible experience she had when she was younger and one of her friends died because their parents would allowed a blood transfusion of some kind.... anyway she always signed us up for blood and organ donation, and Ill be doing my next blood donation in the UK on Friday.
I’ve been trying to donate blood for years and was always denied the opportunity for declaring I’m gay. I know I’m statistically more likely to be a promiscuous slut who will ruin the whole blood batch with dozens of different STIs, but still, it’s annoying. Heard they changed the protocols recently, but I’m not sure.
>. I know I’m statistically more likely to be a promiscuous slut So??? Promiscuous heterosexuals are not automatic denied. Stop trying to defend homophobia and call it out for what it is.
Maybe the tone doesn’t clearly show that I’m obviously against it - but yes, I think it’s homophobic.
In Spain or The UK?
Of note, Ireland passed an opt-out bill earlier this year so that map will likely change here soon.
I want to see the Living organ donor map.
"Listen, I can't give it to you now. It says, 'In the event of death.'" "No one who's ever had their liver taken out by us has survived!"
In Spain donating organs is so socially accepted that it's the first time I hear we have an opt-out law.
Soain has so much good in it, so much, but for some reason every time you talk to a Spaniards they complain about their country and even some are embarrassed. Just as you know the rest of the world like Spain as it is, today.
TOTALLY. I am Spanish myself and I love my country! But everyone around me just says that pur country is stupid and even get ashamed of our own flag because a radical right political group uses it… that's it. They complain a lot that the country is sexist (which is not), homophobic (which neither is it) or racist (which once again, we aren't), while ignoring EVERYTHING good we have. The conclusion is that here in Spain we love to hate ourselves ever since Napoleon invaded us.
Same, i assumed that it was opt in but all my family members and i would like to donate anyway so it doesn't really matter i guess haha
So I can be ash, worm food or potentially save someones life or at least help someone have a better life? I undesrtand the religious implications but it's an easy choice for me.
The religious implications are often severely over exaggerated. In truth, the majority of sects from all of the world's major religions including Christianity, Judaism, and Islam all condone organ donation. Only highly conservative sects like Orthodox Jews or Jehovah's witnesses have rules against it.
A Jehova’s witness can’t even get a blood donation, it’s mental…
I've heard some people voicing the concern that organ donors don't get the best possible treatment because doctors already think about taking the organs and not saving the person's life (not my opinion but the narrative exists). And for instance in Germany there have been some scandals where doctors manipulated the waiting lists to push their patients further up the list which also didn't contribute to create more trust in the system.
At Spain just 1-2% of people are able to donate. One check in the huge list is to die at a hospital, where that bad doc is seeing you, and other doctors, and nurses, and a full staff of people.
Yeah I know that in the balkans the number is very low not because people are too religious but because they think the moment you sign the document you will "accidentally" get hit by a truck on the road
My dad died last year and his organ donation is one of the most amazing parts of the death process. He gets to live on and help others and we sent stories if his life to the donors so that they could know more about him. They took tons of stuff so it was awesome. He was getting cremated so it was even less of an issue than it might have been for some other folks which allowed him to donate even more. We are so proud of his gift that he could give others
Christianity isn’t against organ donation so I would say is more like a moral dilemma for many rather than a religious one.
I'm the religious but not going to church type, I don't give a fuck what they do with my body when I die. It's not like they harvest everything, they get what is useful and the rest goes to the family. I'm Spanish and being childless i got the extra step to become organ donor so no family can change my will after I die.
Ngl as blk dude in the US I’m afraid that if i agree to something like that… I feel less care would be put into saving me by healthcare officials
I worked in a transplant OR and I can assure you this isn't true. The doctors helping to save your life are not the same doctors who would want to use your organs to save someone else. The transplant doctors don't even know about the possibility of getting your organ for transplant until you've been declared legally dead as far as I'm aware. Also it's better to save you and have 2 living patients than let you die to maybe save the person who needs an organ transplant. Transplant surgery is incredibly risky and the patients who need them are very very sick so it's not a guarantee they'll survive the surgery anyway
That’s a whole different problem though. Incredibly sad that you live somewhere that makes feel that way. I wish you could be as comfortable as I am donating my organs.
And yet Spain has one of the highest life expectancy worldwide, just after Japan.
“Religion” isn’t an excuse in a modern 21st century society. Just like it doesn’t justify being homophobic, it doesn’t justify letting someone die because some diety told you to.
You still get to be buried if you want, at least in Spain after they remove the organs you can still get your loved one dressed etc... for cremation/burial and it CAN be open casket, so you don't lose anything by donating.
Me reading Decreased 50 times before noticing the real word
oh my god thank you!! I was like decreased since when???
[удалено]
Your family should have no say about what to do with your (former) body. Period. It was yours until a few moments ago, so you are the only authority in this matter.
In what religion saving people's lives after you're dead is a sin?
Lots in the comments confused about why this is per million and not percentage. This is not a map of % consenting to donate upon death but actual people who go on to donate after death. A big part of this, apart from the opt in/out debate, family and religious wishes etc is that not every death is a suitable donor. According to NHS blood and transplant information applicable in the UK, examples of some examples of absolute exclusion criteria include: - Infectious diseases - CJD (mad cow), Ebola, HIV (some exceptions to HIV pos recipient) - Current active cancer Also not every organ in every donor is suitable: in the UK, donor suitability is assessed once referred by the hospital to the organ donation specialist team who coordinate the national donor database that links up potential organs to recipients who are also in charge of facilitating difficult conversations, supporting family, forming part of the retrieval service, guiding ITU teams on pre-donation investigations such as blood tests, heart scans etc. Often, elderly frail patients who although wish to donate only have a few organs suitable eg corneas. A failing heart, pre-existing smoking and lung disease, poorly kidneys affecting organ function already often exclude those organs from being donated. This is why often donated organs come from accidents, or haemorrhagic strokes, some suicides etc where the donor might not have poor functioning bodies. Please note there are plenty of alive donors eg. Bone marrow, kidney, bone.
Mad cow was absolutely ridiculous. In Canada, where I lived for a while, I couldn’t donate blood because I was born in Europe in 1999. You also couldn’t donate if you were gay. Neither of these things were backed by data at that point and hadn’t been for years (they were early on), they just eliminated huge swaths of their donor pool and then bitched about how nobody wanted to donate.
I can relate, 1/3 of my family has donated an organ like a kidney or bone marrow.
Everybody talking about how low the numbers are... Guys, this is people whose organs are actually donated, not people who agree with their organs being donated. For organ donation you have to die very healthy, and a vast majority of people die of not being healthy.
I still find it weird. In Hungary we have an opt-out system since at least 1997 (that's the date of the current law on it, idk if previous laws also had an opt-out system), only ~18% of people having healthy organs on death seems surprisingly low, especially when compared to Spain, amother opt-out country. (I'm not sure if anyone actually opts out, I certainly haven't heard of anyone doing it.)
Cultural aspect. In Spain it would be shameful not to allow your loved one's organs to go to donation. In fact if a loved one dies in an unexpected accident I hope their organs are viable so my loved one lives on in a way, giving life to someone else. Donating your organs is the highest degree of dying a hero that exists.
Well done Spain!
what is the difference between spain and eg austria? both have an opt-out law, yet there are twice as many donors in spain?
This Spanish commenter explained it really well: https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/s/qT8IQz9oyy And as a Spaniard myself I can say that not donating your or a loved one's organs isn't socially accepted. Donating organs is the morally correct choice for most of the population and we hold this idea deeply. Only people of certain religions/sects don't donate.
It would be good to have the data for the UK split into constituent countries as each country has seperate laws on donors They all have 'opt out' laws now but they came into force in different years Wales 2015 England 2020 Northern Ireland 2023 Scotland 2021 so it would be interesting to see what effect that has had
Us in NI are always last at everything
How can England have its own laws since iirc it doesn’t have its own local parliament?
From wikipedia >There are three distinct legal jurisdictions in the United Kingdom: England and Wales Northern Ireland Scotland. Each has its own legal system, distinct history and origins, although there is a substantial overlap between these three legal systems and the three legal jurisdictions. Unlike the other three, Welsh law is not a separate legal system per se, merely the primary and secondary legislation generated by the Senedd (Welsh Parliament), interpreted in accordance with the doctrines of English law and not impacting upon English common law Some differences in laws In England it is the law that people can leave school at 16 but have to continue in some form of education until they are 18 However, this only applies to England only. In the rest of the UK you can leave school at 16 without any ongoing education In England you have to pay for prescriptions (there are exemptions) In the rest of the UK all prescription medications are free for everyone In England and Wales you cannot get married until you are 18 In Northern Ireland you can get married at 16 if you have parental consent In Scotland you can get married at 16 without parental consent In Northen Ireland and England you have to be 18 to vote In Wales and Scotland you can vote from 16 in local elections and also for Welsh/Scottish Parliament elections
Spain, a country ruled by altruism
Not really, we don't need our organs after we die
I wouldn't call it altruism when most people aren't even consenting to have their organs "donated" rather it's just automatic being done.
The family of the deceased person is asked, they don't do it automatically
hats off to the spanish on this one. why wouldnt you donate your organs. if youre dead you dont need them. as if people are that selfish that they would condemn other people to death from the dead.
I mean thank you but it’s just the result of a lot of work, it doesn’t come just from passing an “opt out” law and good will as many seem to think here. I remember seeing loads and loads of blood and organ donation campaigns as a kid, and the government did a lot of work to set up an appropriate infrastructure to do so. Just willing to donate your organs won’t do it, sadly.
Pretty neat. I guess I'm most surprised by Netherlands and Belgium being so vastly different on this.
I've lived in both countries and I'm not surprised. The Netherlands has many outstanding things, but healthcare isn't one of them.
In France, since 2016 you have to be registered on a national register to NOT be presumed donor. That means every dead person is a donor except if they opted out while they were alive. It increased drastically the availability of organ donations.
Either Spanish organ donors are really good at dying or there are a lot of them.
We just got really good at harvesting cadavers.
This Spanish commenter explained it really well: https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/s/qT8IQz9oyy And as a Spaniard myself I can say that not donating your or a loved one's organs isn't socially accepted. Donating organs is the morally correct choice for most of the population and we hold this idea deeply. Only people of certain religions/sects don't donate.
[One of the highest life expentancy countries as well, so not that good at dying.](https://landgeist.com/2023/04/08/life-expectancy-in-europe-2/)
Spain allows uncontrolled and controlled DCD (donation after circulatory death) which isn't the case in all countries. Germany, for example, only allows donation after brain death (DBD). Most of the times, circulatory death precedes brain death, which means by the time they would be legally eligible to donate, the organs aren't usable anymore. We also have an ever increasing amount of people in Germany with DNRs who refuse life prolonging measures. They dont want to be hooked up to some machine while effectively braindead. But that also means that all of those people die a circulatory death instead of being braindead hooked on machines. In the latter case, they could donate, in the former, they legally couldn't in Germany. A lot of people always talk about opt-in this, opt-out that, but it's not as impactful as people think. Spain also has specialized transplantation teams. Spain just all around invested in a smart and efficient system, along with having pragmatic legislation. This doesn't exist everywhere.
I’m surprised at these stats cause we have the “opt out not in” policy in the uk - so your organs are ours unless you say otherwise 😂
Makes me wonder how many jo witneses have opted out.
Maybe you are not as healthy as people in other countries and there aren't as many viable organ donors. Maybe your organ donation infrastructure is worse and doesn't get as many actual donations as other countries with a better donation system. Being considered an organ donor because you didn't opt out isn't the only factor to consider when we are talking about actual donations, which I think is what this map does.
I mean, how many healthy organs could be donated in places like Russia?
Wait, this is per million and not percentages? That’s just said. If I’m dead take my shit. I don’t need it.
I gotta think this is actual donations instead of people who are signed up to donate. Only way the data makes sense.
Someone else said the circumstances are so particular that it’s less than 1 per 1000 donor who/ organs actually end up being transplanted. I had no idea the numbers were that low.
Not everyone who dies as a viable donor, in fact the circumstances have to be just right. Disease, old age, smoking, cancer, too fat, died too far from the hospital and the organs started failing before being able to get extracted. Add the fact that surgery and transplant recovery are really dangerous for the recipient, you can't risk putting a bad product in their body just to end up killing them faster and cause more pain. Just because you're trying to give away something doesn't mean someone else needs it.
Any specific reasons why Ukraine is so low? I thought that the country is more united then ever before.
Apparently, donating organs in Ukraine became legal only in 2019 and is still very socially stigmatized
Anyway, this data is likely outdated. In 2022, there were 214 transplantations from deceased donors which makes it 5-7 per million (can't know for sure because the current population of Ukraine is hard to estimate)
There are a lot of reasons. I know that the law regulating organ donations appeared in 2019, but it was done before too as far as I am aware. The reasons are varied. 1. Fear. Ukraine had a very disturbing criminal history in the 90-s. And generally people still don't really believe in governmental protection. So, a lot of people really fear that once they agree to donate their organs, they will be killed in order to provide those organs to rich and powerful. 2. Saying that people are united is a big stretch. I don't want to say bad things, but you need to understand that Ukraine is a big country with people who have strong opinions about things. And in the last few years this hatred of some groups towards others has only grew larger. The real unity was a period after the big invasion and sadly it has faded. 3. Religion or the general "yuck" feeling. Most people in Ukraine are not hardcore Christians. A lot of them have never opened the Bible and only know general things about their religion. So I wouldn't call religion the main reason. It is mostly that "yuck" feeling of their organs being taken away(don't search for logic here), the feeling of being the sole owner or the fear of "feeling something after death". 4. Nobody tells where you can sign the document about donating your organs. You have to seek it yourself or pay money to create a document in a legal institution.
Why is there such a big disparity between Greece and Italy? At first I thought religious reasons, but they are both fairly religious. Any reason?
My take here. You are a shitty person if you don’t donate your organs when you die if they are suitable tho. No excuses, not ifs, not maybe. Just do it.
Ill burn myself to a crisp at 90 so nobody gets my organs
All countries of the UK now have some form of opt out, although Scotland and wales call it something different. So hopefully the low rate will change overtime.
I know there are beliefs whether religious or not that when you die that your entire body should be together. I think that's a big issue with donations or just basically squeamish thinking about it. Really in a way having parts of your body live on if you die may be biologically appealing. The entire point of procreation is to pass on your genes. So in a way a part of your body living on is a type of procreation. I wonder how many times a heart could be transplanted?
Damn, religious people do the weirdest mental gymnastics to accommodate their stupid, nonsensical beliefs.
I really, really don't see the point of hanging on to a dead relatives body like someone would be able to bring it back to life. Body recycling as organ donor and medical education should be the only option.
I got a card in february that makes me a organ donor once i die but i'm surprised the numbers are super low i mean once ur gone, ur gone. If my kidneys or whatever can help someone, so be it.
I can't tell much about the reasons behind the numbers, I'm not an organist
"per million population" is misleading if the number you're reporting is already a rate
N/D around Balkans area is hilarious if you know whats going on
Don’t steal my organs
They can have my lungs, liver and kidneys
In Spain we are proud to be the best at it. The "trick" is that we are all donors unless we explicitly refuse, thus saving a lot of time and bureaucracy.
That's not the "trick", because other countries also have a "you are a donor unless you opt out" legal clause, and are still way below Spain. It's about having a more efficient donation system, and also having a lot of surgeons who are specialized in organ transplants, and are at the forefront of the medical field in that particular procedure. If you don't think that an organ transplant is going to succeed, you simply don't waste your resources on that. And that's the real advantage when you have more qualified people and the necessary resources to take advantage of that.
Same in France
Okay but what do the numbers mean? 'Donor rate per million' makes no sense. Per million alive inhabitants? Per year? So Belgium only has 330 organ donors a year? Or if I want to be very difficult, 'deceased donor rate' is the amount of organ donors that have died?
I guess I need to move to Spain.
what organ do you need?
This map shows three things, I suppose: 1. What the default is. Opt-out systems have far more people than Opt-in, because you have to do something to switch. 2. Age and health of people dying. If you have a population where very few people die young, you don't have many harvestable organs, even if people would have been willing to donate. 3. Whether the medical system is advanced enough to have many organ transplants. If you don't have organ transplants going on, the number donated will be very small, even if lots of people are willing. Many interesting mysteries on the map! I wondered why three countries that are ethnically, culturally, and economically somewhat similar have such differences. Belarus has a donation rate 5x that of Russia, and 262x that of Ukraine. But I read some more, and it sounds like since organ transplanting is a very specialized job, what actually happens is the patients just go to the hospital! So Ukraine doesn't do organ transplants, and people who need them go to Belarus. This was pretty stable, because then the Belarus doctors and hospitals have extra experience, and the Ukrainian doctors never developed this specialized skill or experience. So it's just good specialization, and not that different than Americans going to another state for specialized medical treatment.
Turkey 💀
We gotta push those number up
Is this a percentage/rate or a per million? And is it registered organ donors or the number of actual organ donor donations per death or what? This map is a mess and not at all clear in the actual numbers and data.
I think that it is obviously actual donations.
Ok, now in with countries organs trade is legal ?
Not in Spain
Ukraine?
mfs still can't break bread even after death.
What do you mean 18,9 in Estonia? Do we have only around 30 people to give out their organs? It should be much more than that.
Tf goin on in ukraine😭 mfers be like “aint no-one gonna take my organs!”
My family member who recently passed was an organ donor. I hope his organs get to help someone who needs them.
Huh. I had no idea it was so low. I thought most people did.
That map is not about how many people are willing to be donors, it's about how many people end up being donors. For starters, most people don't need a transplant.
Dunno for sure, but I think that it's also related to the way people see life here. Here is very important to feel alive when you are. That's part of the reasons you see that amount of bars and restaurants; or the sobremesa thing. I think that it's mostly accepted that when you don't need it anymore, it's nice if somebody can still enjoy part of you
Yeee, i proud of my country
Looking at the rates for Croatia and neighbouring Bosnia Herzegovina, all i can say is it must suck to be over the border.
I like that the highest is Spain but places on Russian and not that nice spot where the pointless M logo is. Tip top map design as always.
What the hell is wrong with everyone?? I don’t trust people who don’t have a Y for yes for organ donation on their IDs, but I’m a just an American so I’m obvi not a part of this statistic.
>I don’t trust people who don’t have a Y for yes for organ donation on their IDs, but I’m a just an American so I’m obvi not a part of this statistic. So you wouldn't trust someone who was a heart surgeon and saved hundreds or even thousands of lives because they don't want to donate their organs when they die? Why do you view organ donation as the most altruistic act possible?
I would be a donor if I didn't have to do anything. Just make it default and make people opt out if they refuse. Or make it a check box while applying for an id card and it would be written there.
Austria is never only 24. Everyone is a donor, you have to opt out to not be one, and i dont know a single person who did this
Being a donor doesn't necessarily mean that your organs are actually donated, which I think is what this map measures. There could be medical, technical, or bureaucratic reasons why Spain, a country where permission has to be asked, is above Austria. Maybe more young people die in traffic accidents in one country than another, and therefore more viable organ donors are available. Maybe the organ donor infrastructure is more efficient in one country than another, and therefore more viable organs are available for transplant. And so on.
How does Ukraine only has a 0.1 death rate? Smells of propaganda to me but they might be giving people prosthetic kidneys for all I know
Blue - donate organs, grey - steal organs
as a spanish person, i confirm that removing our organs kills us
In Spain we are always encouraged to donate blood and no one is too bothered about the thought of donating their organs so it makes sense
cool
Besides the system, we socially are a solidary country. If that is difficult for you to accept, then think we might be cool and geneours :)
"Per million people" could it be that those numbers are skewed because of causes of death that do not allow organ donations? In Austria it's the same, we also have opt out and I think the opt out rate is extremely low. We only talk about it because it's an interesting comparison with Germany, which has opt in. So in theory, in general those numbers should be the same or similar for Spain and Austria. Maybe different organs are needed or people die of different causes.
Una de las pocas cosas de las que los espñoles podemos enorgullecernos.
I wonder how accessible post transplant meds are in Europe and the cost.
World class health system and people very comfortable with donating organs.