392 organ transplant operations were performed in Israel in 2013, the most in a single year. 144 of the operations involved live donors, of which 114 were from family members. This represents a 24% increase from 2012.
The increase is attributed to an increase in the willingness of family to donate organs from relatives declared brain dead. Of the 143 such requests, 80 families agreed, representing a record-breaking 56% as compared to previous years.
248 of the organ donation surgeries involved organs from deceased donors as compared to 163 in 2012. In 109 of these cases the niftar had signed an organ donor card. 90,224 Israeli signed up to the Adi organ donor program in 2013, http://www.itc.gov.il/eng/merkaz.html bringing the number of nationwide organ donor card holders to 787,000. Despite the encouraging statistics, 89 patients died as they waited for donor organs. However, this represents the lowest mortality rate in the past four years, signaling a growing wiliness to donate organs to save lives.
The Adi website explains the priority system under the new law:
The Organ Transplant Law was formulated after comprehensive and in-depth discussions by a forum of ethicists, philosophers, jurists, clergymen, psychologists, and physicians. The Law grants priority on the waiting list to the organ transplant candidate holder of a donor card before other candidates with similar medical data who do not hold such a card.
The new Law also grants priority on the transplant waiting list in the following cases:
· To a transplant candidate whose first degree relative (parents, siblings, children or spouse) has signed the donor card.
· To a transplant candidate whose first degree relative died (in Israel) and his/her organs were donated for life saving.
· To a transplant candidate who has donated, or whose first degree relative has donated an organ (kidney, liver lobe or lung lobe) to a non-specified recipient, i.e. to a stranger, from the transplant waiting list.
There is also HOD (Halachic Organ Donor Society) which lists rabbis who carry organ donor cards.
The website shows 235 Rabbis carry the HOD organ donor card:
· 31.06% Rabbinical Council of America
· 86.38% define brainstem death as death
· 7.66% define only cardiac death as death
· 5.96% requested not to publically show their definition
As of January 2014, there are 1,075 Israelis waiting for donor organs nationwide. Most of them, 762, are waiting for a kidney. 124 of the patients are waiting for a liver, 89 a heart and a similar number waiting for lungs.
Rav Dovid Feinstein Shlita
Rabbi Dr. Moshe Tendler Shlita (Opinion of R’ Moshe ZATZAL)
Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein Shlita
Rabbi Walfish on the Position of Rabbi Yosef Dov Soloveitchik ZATZAL
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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One Response
The primary reason for this increase is due to the activities of the Matnat Chayim organization run by Rabbi Yeshayahu Heber, who alone contributed close to 50 kidney transplants during 2013.