A new way to donate organs
Every week in Switzerland, two people on average die while awaiting an organ. On 1st October, the HUG launched a programme of organ donations known as "non-heart beating" to increase the number of donors.
In this type of donation, which was previously quite rare in Switzerland, organs are taken from patients whose heart has stopped working before the brain, unlike the usual procedure. It's a new way to donate organs that nevertheless carries technical, human and ethical challenges.
With this new programme, funded by the HUG Private Foundation, Geneva University Hospitals hope to double the number of donors each year to save lives.
143
organ donors in Switzerland
Seventeen of these donations were in Geneva, including the first non-heart beating donation.