Berlin – June 3, 2023 is “Organ Donation Day”. On the same day, the general meeting of the IGN e. V. in Heidelberg. Members take part in the meeting both in person and via video conference. The “roots” of the interest group are in Heidelberg. In 2011 the initiators of the IGN e. V. for the first time in person during an information event at the Heidelberg Transplant Center. The presenting physicians should have a lasting memory of the unpleasant questions asked by the founders of the association about the risks of a living kidney donation.
An organ donation can not only be made postmortem, but also as a living organ donation. The expansion of living kidney donation to include the possibility of cross-over donation is currently being discussed in the Bundestag. The concern of the IGN e. V. is, among other things, the relentless and honest explanation of the risks of living kidney donation. Therefore, after years of struggle, it is now also taken very seriously in politics.
After founding the IGN e. V. the community of interests was ridiculed. After all, according to the convincing but incorrect representation of transplantation medicine, “you can always live well with a kidney!”. Through our tireless commitment and fact-based education, the IGN e. V. is now perceived as representing the interests of living kidney donors.
In 2019, with the support of IGN e. V. two groundbreaking fundamental judgments on the obligation to provide information before a living organ donation were won by the Federal Court of Justice (Az: VI ZR 495/16 and VI ZR 318/17).
At least since then, the IGN e. V. is an indispensable part of the discourse on living kidney donation!
At the end of March this year, the 1st chairman, Ralf Zietz, was invited by the Federal Ministry of Health to exchange views on an amendment to the Transplantation Act. At the end of April, he was heard before the Health Committee of the German Bundestag on the AfD’s application on the subject of “improving the chances of survival of dialysis patients – allowing cross-over living donation as a statutory health insurance service” as an expert.
The IGN e. V. will continue to fight to eliminate the still existing shortcomings in the education and protection of living kidney donors.
The IGN e. V. invites all living kidney donors, their relatives or other interested persons to work in the association. The membership application can be made via the website of the interest group at www.nierenlebendspende.com.