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With around 120 people currently on Luxembourg's organ waiting list and only a handful of transplants possible each year, the need for donors remains urgent, experts warn.
Because of the shortage of organs, every donor counts, giving hope to people like Evelyne Hornemann-Biagioli. She waited 17 months for a kidney before her transplant finally succeeded. Her mother, who had the same hereditary condition, spent ten years on dialysis.
"It's like night and day. When you're waiting for a kidney and have to go on dialysis – three times a week, four to five hours each session – your whole day is gone. Afterwards, you can't do anything", says Hornemann-Biagioli, who received her new kidney 22 years ago.
The number of donors in Luxembourg fluctuates from year to year but remains generally stable. Patients in the Grand Duchy typically wait around three and a half years for an organ, with most coming from abroad. Advances in technology have helped streamline organ transport – specialised transport boxes, for example, can keep a heart viable for up to 24 hours.
"With an ageing population, it's becoming harder to find suitable organs. We have between 18 and 25 potential donors per year, but in the end, only about eight to nine transplants can actually be carried out", explains Jorge De Sousa, national transplantation coordinator at LuxTransplant. "Still, the number of potential donors is steady, and that's not so bad considering the circumstances."
Nationwide actions are regularly held to raise awareness about the importance of organ donation. In recent years, the willingness to become a donor has increased significantly. By law, everyone in Luxembourg is automatically considered a donor, though around 30,000 people, roughly 4% of the population, have officially opted out via the electronic patient record. In Luxembourg itself, no organs have been implanted since 2010, only removed.
"In Esch, we haven’t removed any organs ourselves to send to a patient. However, we have surgically removed a number of corneas, roughly 500 times since 2019", explains Julia Simon, hospital officer for organ transplants at CHEM.
Currently, about 120 people in Luxembourg are on the waiting list for an organ. Because most organs come from abroad, pressure on the country's donation system is increasing. Eurotransplant, an intermediary association of eight member countries – including Luxembourg – is working to boost the number of donations in the coming years.
