EU card to boost organ donor rates

THE European Union’s health chief proposed an EU-wide organ donor card yesterday after a survey showed most Europeans support using such cards but only 12% actually carry one.

The proposed card is part of a plan by EU Health Commissioner Markos Kyprianou to increase donations and transplants.

The lack of a transplant ethos in Irish hospitals, where medical staff are unwilling to donate their own organs, is the single biggest deterrent to more lives being saved through organ donations, the head of the European Heart and Lung Transplantation Federation said.