Automatic Organ Donors?

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Kate
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Automatic Organ Donors?

Post by Kate »

Good day,

I hope that you can assist me. I see on your website that all French citizens are automatically organ donors, however, my family have recently arrived from South Africa and are not citizens. How does one go about ensuring that we are registered to donate, and with whom, in the case of death in France?

Kind regards
Webdoc
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Post by Webdoc »

I can't speak specifically for France but as a general rule it's exceptionally rare for people to end up in a position to be a donor. You have to be brain dead but otherwise alive, with no infection. That usually means a severe stroke or head injury.

The most important action to take is to tell all your family most emphatically that you would wish to be a donor. Whether you're on a list or not, doctors won't strip you down for spare parts without the family agreeing.

I could elaborate on the process involved in harvesting organs but it's probably better not to know!
martyn94
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Re: Automatic Organ Donors?

Post by martyn94 »

Kate wrote:Good day,

I hope that you can assist me. I see on your website that all French citizens are automatically organ donors, however, my family have recently arrived from South Africa and are not citizens. How does one go about ensuring that we are registered to donate, and with whom, in the case of death in France?

Kind regards
I can’t be bothered to trawl through the whole code de la santé, but the relevant provision

https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichCo ... dateTexte=

gives no indication that it is restricted to French citizens. These things normally work simply on the basis of your presence in French jurisdiction (ie you have died here).

I don’t believe that there is any register here to say that you do or don’t want to donate. It works on the basis of presumed consent, unless the doctors can find any reason to think you wouldn’t have. Which in practice means that the doctors ask your loved ones. Which makes webdoc’s advice entirely good, and entirely sufficient: I don’t think that there is anything more you could do if you tried.
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