Should’ve known it would be the BNN channel though…
As someone who’s going to need a new kidney in the nearish future you can imagine how this story makes me feel.
Terminally ill woman to give away her organs on Dutch TV
dpa German Press Agency
Published: Saturday May 26, 2007Amsterdam– Dutch TV on Friday is due to air a show in which a terminally ill woman choses one out of three kidney patients to receive her organs after she dies, reports said Saturday. The Dutch public can advice 37-year-old Lisa in making her decision by sending her text messages via mobile phone.
Earlier on Saturday, legislator Joop Atsma of the Christian Democrats (CDA) called the Big Donor Show, as the TV programme is called, “morally wrong and reprehensible.”
Atsma said he would question the Minister of Health Ab Klink (CDA) and Media Minister Ronald Plasterk of the Labour party (PvdA) about the issue in parliament next week.
The TV show is a production of Endemol Entertainment and due to be
aired by broadcasting company BNN.BNN, which primarily targets teenagers and young adults, is known for its controversial and provocative shows, having aired highly explicit programmes on sex and drugs in the past.
The Dutch public has grown accustomed to the type of provocative shows that BNN prefers to air, and is usually indifferent when the company launches a new controversial programme.
The Big Donor Show however does not go unnoticed.
Atsma said: “I want to talk to BNN about this issue. BNN is solving one problem, but creates two others. Did BNN even consider how the two people will feel who will be rejected as donor recipients?”
BNN president Laurens Drillich said on Saturday the broadcast would go through as planned. “Participants have a 33-per-cent chance to get a kidney. That is substantially higher than people on the waiting list. One would expect the shortage of donor organs to diminish, but the contrary is true.”
Originally, BNN was founded by the late Bart de Graaf, a kidney patient since early childhood. De Graaf never received a donor kidney and died five years ago. BNN said the show wanted to demonstrate that five years after De Graaf’s death, there was still an alarming shortage of donor organs in the Netherlands.
The number of Dutch nationals registering as organ donors has been decreasing in recent years, causing the government to launch a new campaign urging the public to register.
Paul Beerkens, director of the Dutch Kidney Foundation, which collects money for research on kidney diseases, said he was very pleased BNN was paying attention to the donor shortage problem.
“But I do not support their methods,” Beerkens said, adding: “Besides, they do not offer a structural solution. For structural solutions, one must implement one of the donor masterplans our foundation developed.”
© 2006 – dpa German Press Agency
And yet I still have a better chance of getting a kidney here in NL than at home in the UK, because the UK hasn’t signed up to the EU transplant pool.
To those reading this who are disgusted by it – go and sign a donor card. Then you can be as disgusted as you like.
UPDATE:
Not often you get two bits of Amsterdam kidney news in one day – the nephrology department that I attend at Vrij Universiteit Medisch Centrum burned down on Saturday:
Amsterdam – Police in Amsterdam said Saturday they were still investigating the cause of a fire which heavily damaged one of the city’s largest hospitals but caused no injuries.
The VUMC hospital in Amsterdam said Saturday it will not admit any new patients following a fire on its second floor.
The first aid and dialysis departments remain closed. The measures were put in place after a fire broke out in the hospital just before 0400 GMT Saturday morning, resulting in heavy damage.
Not a good week for us Amsterdam kidney patients, really.
