Germany's Ailing Organ Transplant System

DW.DE

A scandal over the manipulation of waiting lists for organ transplants in Germany has led critics to call for tougher controls. They say those who carry out the checks are those who benefit from the system.

When Harald Terpe wrote a report on the scandal over organ transplants in Germany, he gave it the title, "Failure of vital organs." Terpe is a doctor and a Green member of the German Bundestag who sits on the parliamentary health affairs committee. He says better controls are essential.

In hospitals in the German cities of Göttingen and Regensburg, surgeons are alleged to have manipulated waiting lists for organs so that some patients received a new liver earlier than they would have otherwise - at the expense of other patients on the Eurotransplant waiting list. Eurotransplant is the organization which coordinates the distribution of organs in seven European countries. Terpe says the system should distribute the organs fairly between the various countries. If the procedure is undermined through manipulation, he argues, "then that's the end of the transplantation system."

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