More organ donors due to donor law, that's how many there are

The number of registered organ donors rose by almost 30,000 compared to last year, according to Statistics Netherlands (CBS). On January 1st, there were 8.1 million registered donors, representing 58 percent of adult organ donors. More people are automatically registered as organ donors because they haven't made a choice, rather than because they have given explicit consent.

The rules regarding organ donation changed on July 1, 2020. The amended Donor Act stipulates that all Dutch residents aged 18 and over will be registered in the Donor Register. You can indicate whether or not you wish to donate your organs, and whether you want to exclude certain organs from donation, for example. If you do not indicate a choice, you have "no objection to organ donation." Anyone who does not wish to be an organ donor must therefore actively inform us of this.

Approximately 3.33 million adults have not made a choice. Last year, this was 3.29 million. Approximately 10.6 million people have made a choice. Nearly 4.8 million of them give consent to donate their organs, over 4.3 million do not, and approximately 1.5 million leave that choice to their relatives. In 2020, the year the new organ donation law took effect, 6.9 million people had made a choice.

According to Statistics Netherlands (CBS) and the Donor Register, young people are primarily organ donors because they haven't indicated their choice. Among 18- to 25-year-olds, 41 percent haven't made a choice. In 2022, this was just over 36 percent. The group of young adults who don't give consent rose from 41 to 45 percent during that period. Of those aged 75 and older, more than half don't give consent for organ donation.

Residents of Neder-Betuwe are the least likely to be registered as donors, at 43 percent, followed by residents of Urk (47 percent). Residents of the municipality of Groningen are the most likely to be registered as donors (68 percent), followed by Rozendaal (67 percent).

Men were almost one and a half times more likely than women to indicate no choice. People with primary education or a pre-vocational secondary education diploma were one and a half times more likely to indicate no choice than those with a higher professional education or university diploma. And if they did choose, it was almost twice as likely to indicate "no consent."

Last year, it was notable that adults from outside the Netherlands were almost twice as likely to indicate they did not want to be a donor as adults from the Netherlands. The fact that people from non-Dutch backgrounds are less likely to be donors could lead to a shortage of donors for this group. The chance of finding a suitable organ that will not be rejected by the body is greatest if it comes from someone with the same background.