Tuesday, 1 December 2015

Wales changes the law on organ donors

Wales, part of the United Kingdom, has some autonomy on law making, and today they are implementing a law.

A GREAT law!

From today, in Wales it is now the law that adults will be regarded as organ donors, unless they opt out of organ donation. This is similar to the law in some other countries, but not the rest of the UK. Amazingly, as the UK only has one transplant list, this will help people everywhere in the UK.

In Wales, more than one million people - 34% of the population - have registered to opt in already and only 86,000 have opted out. This is great news as in the past year, 14 people died whilst waiting for a transplant in Wales, while there are currently 224 people on the waiting list, including eight children. The figures for the rest of the UK, of course, are much higher, by more than a factor of ten. To the extent that roughly 3 people die every day in the UK waiting for a transplant.

The change in the law aims to increase the number of donors by 25%. Let's hope it succeeds.

Let's hope the rest of the UK pass the same law. Soon.