How to increase the organ donation in Japan?
~Learn from a successful case~
In 2018, the number of organ donation in Japan is only “97”. This is not a number of cases in a state, but the number of cases in total of Japan.
The population of Japan is one third of it in USA. But the number of organ donation is one tenth of it. Compared with more geographically close country like Korea, the number of it is one fifth.
Why we are still suffering from this severe organ shortage in Japan? Actually, the number of organ donation has not changed in these 2 decades. Some say it is due to our religious issues, others say our law definition of brain death is the problem. We are still struggling to find an answer to increase organ donation.
Korea, is known for improving their organ shortage by revising their organ transplant act in 2006 and 2011. Nowadays they perform almost 500 organ donation in 2018.
We could learn from how they improved their systems in 2000-2010s.