Organ donors beware

The list is long. Over 12,000 sick people in Germany wait for a donor organ every year. For about 13%, this wait is in vain because there aren't enough organ donors in Germany. Now, politicians are again trying to take on this issue, and it seems they're trying to exert a "clever" coercion. Anyone who doesn't provide proof of donor status won't receive a donor organ.

So far, so good. I am 100% against this method of organ harvesting. First of all, I'm personally burdened by the early death of a good friend. He was declared brain dead at the time, and that was in a university hospital. 

I'll just say... young, usable body parts, university hospital, not famous or rich, and finally died due to "machine shutdown by the attending physician," thus a perfect "spare parts warehouse." Or think of the movie "Flash," about violent organ harvesting.

I believe that as long as hospital procedures and everything associated with them remain so uncontrolled, there should be no carte blanche for the exploitation of the dead. Organ donations already come from Eastern European countries, from India, where a kidney is simply donated for money, or from China, where juvenile offenders are executed in droves and then "disposed of."

The only alternative: Stay healthy!

Only believe the surveys you created yourself. Old student wisdom, and still true. And that's the case again in this case. The DAK (a German health insurance company) found that 75% are afraid of getting cancer.

The survey and the corresponding results are more about fear than preventative education. And when I read that an incredible 88% are satisfied with their health, 81% exercise regularly, and 80% pay attention to a healthy diet and drink less alcohol, then you can rest easy, eh? You could sit back and relax.

Unfortunately, that's not the case. I just hope the people in charge at the health insurance company don't draw conclusions from such statistics because the reality is different. The question is, who actually drinks all that alcohol? Who eats the "garbage" that's labelled as food, and who smokes all those cigarettes? Where are all the fat people, for example? A statistic from last week revealed that 65% of workers are plagued by stress and burnout.

So forget such figures; they either serve only as bad entertainment, accompany cuts in the healthcare system, or combine advertising offers.

The problem is different. While 10 years ago, the majority of hospital patients were admitted with "only" one serious and often fatal illness (circulatory system, cancer, obesity, dementia, diabetes) and were discharged after a successful recovery, in another 10 years, things will look dramatically different unless a 180-degree turnaround occurs.

Patients will be admitted with triple illnesses. Diagnosis: cancer, obesity, and circulatory system disease. The problem will then be that these patients will be so old that they can't simply be discharged, because where would they go then? If things continue like this, there won't be enough nursing home beds.

Those responsible for politics and the healthcare system are lying to themselves about this problem, probably hoping that others will make these decisions for them later. The only answer we can give is to live healthy lives ourselves! Above all, live now and live independently.