Organ donation: Award for East German clinics

The health ministers of Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia have honored clinics in all three states for their commitment to organ donation. The employees of the KMG Klinikum Sömmerda, the Klinikum Chemnitz and the Altmark-Klinikum in Gardelegen were particularly committed to this, according to a statement from the German Organ Donation Foundation (DSO), which presented the award together with the ministers at Wartburg Castle in Eisenach.

More than 900 people in Central Germany on waiting list for organs

Last year, there were a total of 130 organ donors in the more than 130 participating hospitals in the three states - four more than in the previous year. According to the German Organ Donation Foundation, 343 organs were retrieved. This means that the number of organ donations in Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia has fallen slightly. In the previous year, 351 organs were donated. The figures are also stagnating nationwide: 2,854 organs were donated in 2024, three fewer than in 2023. According to the DSO, over 900 people from Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia were on the waiting list for a transplant at the end of 2024.

Thuringia's Health Minister Katharina Schenk (SPD) was delighted that the award also went to clinics that "are not among the maximum care providers and university hospitals". Saxony's Health Minister Petra Köpping (SPD) emphasized the importance of the transplantation officers in the clinics: "It is their responsibility to reliably identify potential organ donors and to create reliable structures in their clinics for the organ donation process." Saxony-Anhalt Health Minister Petra Grimm-Benne (SPD) called for more willingness on the subject: "Organ donations are only possible if
people show solidarity".