There are just over 27,000 registered organ donors in Malta, Alexandra Gatt, Director of the Health Care Standards Directorate within the Department for Health Regulation, told The Malta Independent.

The number is not as high as it should be.

Donating an organ is the greatest gift a person could give, and there should be a strong drive to encourage more people to put down their name on the list of organ donors.

Advancement in technology and the medical world has opened up myriad possibilities. In Malta, we have made progress too, and some transplants are held locally. Other, more complicated interventions are held abroad.

As things stand now, people have to register themselves as organ donors so that, upon their death, these are given to people who need them.

A few months ago, Nationalist MP Ivan Bartolo suggested that the matter should be tackled the other way round – people should automatically be considered as organ donors, he said, and only those who opt out of the system should be considered as non-donors.

This, he said, will most likely increase the number of organs that become available for transplant. This is because many people will not bother to enlist themselves as non-donors, meaning that, should we have an opt-out system, they would be on the list of donors.

It is very simple to become an organ donor – all one needs to do to register is by going online on servizz.gov.mt and register with one’s E-id, or send an email to [email protected] (phone 2595 3324 for more details). Application forms are also found in health centres, community clinics and local councils.

In spite of this, the number of donors who are registered is low. Maybe people do not know that they can become donors, maybe they are still afraid to be enlisted, or maybe they are too lazy to register themselves.

Still, they should take courage from the many families who lose a loved one, and decide to donate his or her organs to others. We’ve seen many stories of parents who, tears in their eyes, speak of how their son and daughter “continues to live” in someone else. It is the ultimate gift that someone gets to live, or gets to live better, via an organ donated by someone who dies.

There are people who have been on the waiting list for an organ for years, simply because one which is compatible to them cannot be found. Their chances of a compatible organ, which would improve their quality of life, would grow exponentially if there are more organs available.

The government should come up with a solid, widespread campaign to encourage more people to become organ donors. So much money is spent in promoting what the government is doing and what it intends to do. If a small part of this budget is used to promote organ donation, it is possible that more people would register themselves.

It does not take much.