The Donor Register contains 14.1 million people aged 18 and older. Of these, 3.1 million people are registered as ‘no objection’. This means that they have not passed on a choice.
“However, the consequences of a ‘no objection’ are unclear to many,” writes Minister Ernst Kuipers (Public Health) to the House of Representatives. “For example, a third of the ‘no objection’ registered people think that this choice is equivalent to allowing next of kin to decide in the event of death.”
Reduce deficit
According to Kuipers, 37 percent of the ‘no objection’ group made this choice consciously because they want to be an organ donor after their death. Just over a third say they have not yet thought about it or have not yet got around to making a choice. The number of active registrations is lagging far behind, especially among young people between the ages of 18 and 24.
The purpose of the Donor Act is to reduce the shortage of donor organs. That worked. In July 2021, 4.8 million people explicitly consented to organ donation. That is almost a million more than at the beginning of 2020, according to figures from the Central Bureau of Statistics.