All over the world, patients are waiting for life-saving donor organs. In Germany alone, there are currently 10.900 people on the waiting list and every eight hours a patient dies because he does not receive a donor organ in time. Health experts and politicians have been discussing for a long time how people's willingness to donate organs can be increased. Since 2012, health insurers have been obliged to regularly send their policyholders information material on organ donation and to ask them to fill out an organ donor card.
Now a recent US study shows that TV series also have an influence on the willingness to donate organs. Using the example of the American medical series "Grey's Anatomy," she showed that especially the The opinion of young – mainly female – viewers between the ages of 18 and 24 is negatively influenced by the portrayal in the series. Now that a German television station has also announced that it will address the ie of organ trafficking in an early evening series, the Techniker Krankenkasse (TK) fears that the fictional portrayal will also have a real impact on the willingness to donate in this country.
"Our surveys show that the better informed people are, the greater their willingness to donate. Lack of information is the most common reason people decide against organ donation. That's why it's important that we provide people with sufficient and correct information on the basis of which they can make a decision for themselves," said Pia Jai, who is responsible at TK for providing information to policyholders on organ donation.
