launch of an organ donation awareness campaign in Marseille, where the opposition rate is one of the highest in France

More than 60% of organ donation refusals were recorded last year in the Marseille city compared to 36% nationally.

An organ donation awareness campaign has been launched in Marseille. A conference open to the public takes place on Wednesday, December 4, on the occasion of the annual congress of the French-speaking transplantation society and interventions in high schools are scheduled in the coming months. The city of Marseille has one of the highest rates of opposition to organ donations in France. More than 60% refusals last year according to the APHM, Marseille public hospitals, compared to 36% nationally. Refusals which have only increased in recent years.

To refuse to donate your organs, you must register during your lifetime on the refusals register. Otherwise, it is the family who will have to speak for the deceased. And families very often say “non”notes Professor Valérie Moal, head of kidney transplants at the APHM: “There is a lot of absence of information. For example, saying that religions are opposed to organ donation when that is false. A lot of absence of discussions: we say no when in doubt, because ‘we don’t know.’

The family may not know the position of the deceased and may be in shock: “I experienced this moment of astonishment where we are in denial of death.” Laurent Demola, with his family, had to agree to the removal of the organs of his nephew, who died at the age of 22 in a road accident.

Before this tragedy, Laurent Demola had himself received a liver transplant, so he had the opportunity to discuss it with his nephew: “This organ donation saved my life, so he positioned himself and said to me: ‘I am an organ donor’. If I had not been transplanted, we would not have had this conversation if he doesn’t position himself, we can’t, as quickly as possible, say: ‘Yes, take it’.” Professor Valérie Moal specifies: “Let’s talk about organ donation, so that we can be calm if there is a tragedy. We can all also need a transplant…”

In Marseille alone, 800 patients are waiting for a transplant and there are 22,000 throughout France.