Some argue that boosting organ donation requires compensation for hospitals and medical staff as well. In Europe, central and local governments reimburse costs arising from organ donation and pay allowances to dedicated medical teams, providing indirect support for donation systems.
According to South Korea's Ministry of Health and Welfare and other sources on the 28th, Spain's health ministry fully reimburses all medical costs, operating room expenses and organ transport costs incurred during transplant procedures within the public health system. The 1979 Law on the Extraction and Transplantation of Organs stipulates that "necessary measures must be established so that the process of organ extraction and transplantation does not become a financial burden on organ donors or their families." Donors receive no payment for donating, but the philosophy holds that society should bear the costs the donation generates. With organ donors reaching the mid-40s per million population, Spain is the world's most active country for organ donation.
Spain is also strengthening support for nonprofit hospitals and institutions that carry out organ extraction and transplantation. The government's subsidy to the National Transplant Organization (ONT) this year is 3 million euros (about 4.9 billion won), up about 45.7% from 2.05917 million euros (about 3.4 billion won) a year earlier. The funds are spent on promoting transplants and improving the number of procedures, their quality and survival rates. In addition, autonomous communities such as Andalusia pay allowances to medical staff specializing in transplants.
Croatia, which along with Spain posts one of the world's highest organ donation rates, has introduced a more direct incentive system. Under a "donor hospital" compensation program launched in 2006, hospitals that receive organ donations are paid about 40,000 to 55,000 Croatian kuna (about 9 million to 12 million won) per case to cover the cost of identifying potential donors and preparing them for donation. The payment is separate from compensation for the transplant surgery itself. The European Society for Organ Transplantation assessed that the program "had the effect of encouraging small hospitals without transplant centers to actively identify potential donors."
Elsewhere, France plans to inject an additional 210 million euros (about 343.3 billion won) into its 2022-2026 national plan for organ and tissue extraction and transplantation, pursuing greater specialization of hospital organ procurement coordination and increased staffing. Britain places a Clinical Lead for Organ Donation (CLOD), a physician responsible for organ donation, at hospitals and allows them to claim separate allowances for the related work.
