Serbia is marking the National Donor Day on 6th June, just a few weeks after the alleviation of the measures for prevention against coronavirus, which paralysed the whole world and therefore the organ donation and transplantation programme. There are still about 1,000 people on waiting lists for transplantation while the number of donors in Serbia has not yet reached 10 per one million of inhabitants, which is needed in order to reduce the waiting lists and save lives. Due to the small number of donors, today there are still 807 persons waiting for kidney transplantation, 43 persons waiting for liver transplantation, while 28 persons are hoping for heart transplantation.

Four years ago, Hemofarm Foundation joined the campaign of supporting the national programme of organ donation and transplantation, with a wish to help the society and the institutions. As a partner of the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Serbia, Hemofarm Foundation launched the ‘Most Important Call in Life campaign with the aim of raising awareness of the public on the importance of organ donation, as well as creating a national consensus for adopting a new law on transplantation. Passing the Law on Transplantation of Human Organs represents the greatest success of the campaign, which introduced a supposed consent according to which each citizen of age became a potential organ donor, unless he/she objected to it during his/her life or unless his/her family decided otherwise.

The battle for a larger number of donors continued in 2019, too, when the campaigned was named ‘I am a Donor, too. Because I Support Serbia.’ The protagonists of the campaign, in addition to the patients who had been waiting for organ transplantation for a large number of years, were doctors and the best Serbian athletes – Ivana Španović, Maja Ognjenović, Dejan Stanković, Dejan Savić, Branko Lazić, Dragan Škrbić, Zoran Tošić, Marina Maljković and Aleksandar Đorđević, whose message to the public was: “This is a game of life in which we must not lose.’

‘I am proud of both campaigns we have initiated because they have become our personal mission for us in Hemofarm. Having initiated the campaigns for increasing the number of donors, we have decided to fight for a change in people’s minds, for a change of perception of this topic in the society, saving human lives in this manner. I am a proud owner of two donor cards – a Serbian and a German one. I believe that it is the obligation of every adult citizen to be a donor and save a life of another person because life is the most valuable thing we have’, said Ronald Seeliger, Hemofarm CEO.


The National Donor Day, on 6th June, is an opportunity to emphasise the importance of organ donation and transplantation as the most responsible, most selfless and most humane act that a person can do for another human being but also to remind that you are 20 times more likely to need a donor in your life than you would be in a situation to become a donor.

Over the year 2019, 15 families in Serbia gave their consent for donation of organs of their beloved ones, thanks to which 37 lives were saved.