Organ donation: the refusal register opens online

On January 23, the second stage of the organ donation law comes into force. Anyone who has died has been considered a presumed donor for 40 years. This provision was reinforced on January 1. But citizens who refuse any future levy can still express their refusal. A decision now simplified. The national register of refusals will be directly accessible online starting this Monday.

Name, first name, address … Registration requires detailed information on civil status. It is also possible to specify which action is opposed: organ or tissue transplant for therapeutic purposes, samples for scientific research, non-judicial medical autopsy. Finally, the Internet user must attach an official identity document to his declaration. Once these three steps have been completed, a confirmation is sent by email or by post.

42% refusal

In the absence of entry in this register, doctors will ask the family for the patient’s wishes during his lifetime. There are two possibilities for this. Either the deceased has written his wishes in a dated and signed document, and has given them to a relative, or the family will have to echo an oral commitment.

In the latter case, the law changes to formalize the refusal. Because the Biomedicine Agency has noted a paradox: while 90% of French people are in favor of organ donation, the refusal rate expressed by families reaches 42% on average.

Writing a certificate attesting to the refusal expressed by the deceased person should both reinforce this right, and limit refusals that do not need to be, where the family takes the place of the will of the deceased. In any case, this is what the Agency hopes for.

As a reminder, in 2015, nearly 21,500 French people were registered on the waiting list for transplants. Less than 6,000 of them were able to receive a transplant.

Watch the show L’Invité santé by Pourquoidocteur
with Anne Courrèges (Biomedicine Agency)
broadcast on 06/16/2016: