the Biomedicine Agency wants to encourage dialogue in families around organ donation

A discussion of a few minutes with his relatives, to perhaps one day facilitate their decision. On the occasion of National Day for Organ Donation and Transplantation, theAgence de la biomédecine hopes to spark dialogue. In principle, unless we are registered on the refusal register, we are all donors. But in fact, at the time of death, it is often to the family of the deceased that doctors turn.

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Ensuring that the person, during their lifetime, has not asserted their opposition is the role of hospital coordinators, such as Carine Raffestin Garrabos. “We sit down and approach the donation in all simplicity: ‘Has your dad, your mom or your son ever objected?’she explains. That’s why you have to be able to give yourself time, and give time to the family. It may seem like a lot, two hours, but it may be enough to get to the sample and save up to six lives.”

Behind the donation, lives that are being rebuilt

Currently, a third of potential donors are not removed, because they did not express their wish during their lifetime. Yet there are 10,000 patients registered each year on the transplant waiting list. Marine Jeantet is the director of the Biomedicine Agency: “It takes thirty seconds. All you have to do is tell your family ‘yes I’m an organ donor, or no I’m not’. You’re relieving them at a time that can be extremely dramatic and difficult for them.”