Israel’s National Center for Organ Transplants reports 2009 brought a welcome 8% increase in organ donations in Israel, placing Israel in line with Western nations, the daily Yisrael HaYom reports. Leading the international community is Australia with 14.3 organ donations per million residents, followed by Israel with 7/million and the USA with 4.9/million.

Officials credit the rise in organ donations to the increase in awareness among citizens, the result of ongoing efforts to educate the public to the life-saving realities of permitting organ transplants.

In 2009, 69 families agreed to permit harvesting organs from their deceased loved ones as opposed to 56 families that declined to step forward.

The report shows that with each passing year there is an increase in the number of families willing to permit doctors to pronounce a patient dead based on a brain death determination, now recorded at 54.33%. A total of 282 transplants were performed in 2009, from both live and dead donors. 17 of the transplants were performed on children.

At present, 1,069 people await transplants in Israel, a 16% increase from 2008.

The issue of donor organs continues to remain high on the agenda in Eretz Yisrael, with rabbonim giving their respective viewpoints regarding brain death and the cessation of cardiac output.

The reported increase in transplants performed on patients declared ‘dead’ by brain death criteria alone is undoubtedly a cause for concern among those Gedolim Shlita who insist death may only be determined when a patient’s heart ceases to pump, and the ‘brain death’ criteria may not be used to determine death.

(Yechiel Spira – YWN Israel)