SANTIAGO – Only 119 people registered themselves as donor in 2018 – the lowest point in five years. The list of patients waiting for a new organ has grown in the meantime to over 2,000. A new law must encourage Chileans to register themselves as donor.
According to the latest numbers, released by the Ministry of Health (Minsal) in Chile, last year only 119 people were registered as donor. But despite this decrease, there is hope for the 2,017 Chileans that are currently placed on a waiting list for receiving a new organ: a new law has been approved by both Congress and the Senate, ensuring that anyone who does not specifically registers as non-donor, will have his or her organs transplanted after his or her death.
The law, that comes into force next month, states that everyone who has stated before that they don’t want to donate their organs after their death, must ratify this decision again at the Registro Civil. If they fail to ratify their decision within one year, the person will be enlisted as donor. At the moment, four million Chileans have registered themselves as non-donor. All other Chileans are registered as donor by law.
The law was approved as annually register around 7-8 donors per one million Chileans register themselves. This low rate, along with the long waiting lists, have caused the government to approve the Transplant Law. Last year, 349 transplant operations took place, surpassing the number of new registrations three times.
Editor-In-Chief Boris van der Spek is the founder of Chile Today.