The number of patients who died while waiting for organ transplants last year exceeded 3,000.
According to data that Rep. Nam In-soon of the Democratic Party of Korea, a member of the National Assembly Health and Welfare Committee, received from the Ministry of Health and Welfare on the 10th, the number of patients who died while waiting for organ transplants in 2024 was tallied at 3,096. By organ type, there were 1,676 for kidneys, 1,117 for livers, 72 for pancreases, 142 for hearts, and 88 for lungs.
Over the past five years, the number of patients who died while waiting for organ transplants increased every year: 2,191 in 2020, 2,480 in 2021, 2,919 in 2022, and 2,909 in 2023.
The total number of people on the organ transplant waiting list increased, but the number of brain-dead donors decreased. Accordingly, the number of organ transplants also fell from 5,883 in 2020 to 5,030 last year. Although reports by medical institutions of presumed brain death increased, the rate at which families of brain-dead patients consented to donation declined to 31.8% in 2022, 31.4% in 2023, 31.2% in 2024, and 27.5% as of August this year.
Rep. Nam said, "The brain-death donation rate, meaning the number of donors per 1 million people, is 28.4% in the United States, 26.2% in Spain, 17.1% in Sweden, and 11.4% in Germany, while Korea remains at 7.8%," and noted, "It is necessary to promote the culture of life sharing more actively by using mass media and other channels."
Nam said, "Currently, only organ donation after brain death is carried out, but it is necessary to introduce 'donation after circulatory death' (DCD) in connection with the Life-Sustaining Treatment Decision Act," and added, "To proceed with donation and transplantation swiftly, the system should be improved so that specialist medical personnel at relevant institutions can obtain copies of donors' medical records."