During the plenary session (17/05/2010 au 23/05/2010) of the European Parliament in Strasbourg, MEPs debate on organ donation and transplantation.

Strasbourg

plenary session

joint debate

LIESE, Peter (EPP, DE)

KADENBACH, Karin (S&D, AT)

RIES, Frédérique (Renew, BE)

organ donation and transplantation (T)

Organ donation and transplantation: extract from the joint debate

https://api.multimedia.europarl.europa.eu/documents/20125/13991200/ebs70168Chapters%5BSD-EN%5D.srt

SOUNDBITE by Peter LIESE (EPP, DE), in German: Spain is Europe's champion in football as you know, but in this case Spain is also a champion in organ donation and transplantation. And the key for the 'Spanish model' is the way in which hospitals are organised. In other European countries unfortunately organs are lost, not because people did not give their authorisation or consent or because there were no registered donors. In Europe most organs are lost because the doctors don't have enough time to look into this question. Things could be better organised through coordinators at the hospitals, more people could be saved or have healthy lives'

SOUNDBITE by Karin KADENBACH (S&amp;D, AT), in German: We hear figures of 55 to 60 thousand Europeans on a waiting list, 12 people die everyday because our system is not quick enough&hellip; We have a clear task before us to put this into practice. The action plan is very important, we need to ensure that donated organs remain of quality and are safe, and we also need to consider living donation for haemodialysis patients as an important option for them&hellip; We must fight trading in organs and therefore donation free of recompense is particularly important.

SOUNDBITE by Fr&eacute;d&eacute;rique RIES (ALDE, BE), in French: Our objective is to reduce the lack of organs available in the EU, that's first one of priorities. At the same time to create awareness among citizens because there are soma major disparities between member states, 34 donors out of a million in Spain, 27 out of a million in my country Belgium, 1 donor out of a million in Romania&hellip; We need to get rid of administrative barriers as well; we need to establish national authorities in charge of donated organs allocation. In Spain progress has been linked-in to an 'early warning system' right from the beginning of the chain all the way to the end.