Hungary calls for new plan to increase organ donations, but there is a twist

Europe is currently facing a shortage of organs, leading to increasingly long waiting lists for transplants.

As well as improving the quality of life of their recipients, transplants also help save money for public health systems.

For example, a kidney transplant recipient costs Spain €30,000 less per year than a patient on dialysis, according to the Spanish National Transplant Organisation.

The Hungarian presidency of the Council of the EU has now introduced a new proposal aimed at increasing "organ availability, enhancing efficiency and accessibility in transplant systems, and improving quality and safety standards," according to Dr. Péter Takács, Hungary's state secretary for health.

Between 2009 and 2015, the European Union implemented a plan for organ donation and transplantation which resulted in a 21% increase in donations across Europe.

"With the European Union at a crossroads, the imperative for a renewed and vigorous approach to organ donation and transplantation has never been clearer," Takács believes.

One proposed idea is to increase exchanges between member states.

"One way to do this would be to cross borders and try to communicate and organise relationships with other countries that allow organ exchange, a fast track to transplantation and organ procurement," says Dimitri Mikhalski, vice-president of the Belgian Transplantation Society. But he also calls for the rapid transport of organs to be encouraged as "this could reduce their quality".

Within the EU, there are already organisations that coordinate organ shipping. For instance, Eurotransplant connects the needs of Germany, Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Slovenia, Hungary, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands, linking all transplant and organ donation hospitals in