The number of organ donors has grown tremendously in the past few days in Norway due to Mette-Marit’s health situation.
The news about Crown Princess Mette-Marit’s lung transplant has caused Norwegians to act. PDO
The number of people registering as organ donors has grown explosively in Norway after the news of Crown Princess Mette-Marit’s lung transplant, reports Dagbladet.
Information manager of the Norwegian Organ Donation Foundation Alexander Sekowski told Dagbladet that the number of donors has increased significantly in recent days.
– An average of 70 donor cards per day were filled out in Helsenorge in May. On Thursday, 312 completed donor cards were received, and on Friday there were already a total of 2,178, he says in an interview with Dagbladet.
The amount was no less than 31 times higher than the May average.
Helsenorge is the official online transaction service and patient database of Norway’s public healthcare system.
According to Dagbladet, a similar phenomenon was also seen in December 2025, when it became clear that the crown princess will probably need a lung transplant.
According to Sekowski, the attention surrounding the crown princess has a huge impact on the number of donor cards.
– There is no doubt that this is due to all the attention that is related to the crown princess’s health, illness and the fact that she is now on the waiting list for lungs, he told Dagbladet.
Norway’s Crown Princess Mette-Marit is currently in line for a lung transplant. He suffers from pulmonary fibrosis, which he was diagnosed with in 2018. Pulmonary fibrosis is a chronic disease that causes scarring of the lungs and shortness of breath.
The disease is incurable, but its progression can be slowed down with treatment.
A demanding operation
At Rikshospitalen, the hospital that Mette-Marit uses, about 30 lung transplants are performed a year. A lung transplant is a very demanding operation and the patient must be in good enough physical condition to be able to undergo the operation.
Media representatives asked Mette-Marit’s doctors at a press conference on June 5 whether she is being prioritized over other patients.
– That is easy to answer. We have guidelines for how we prioritize and we follow them. We always prioritize the sickest person, i.e. the one who doesn’t have time to wait, the senior doctor Are Holm answered.
According to the chief physician, in the past, as many as 20 percent of the patients in the transplant queue died before they could get the surgery. At the moment, however, the situation looks brighter.
– In the last six months, no one has died while in the transplant queue, because the waiting list is short. The waiting time is also shorter.
Source: Dagbladet