[Liver donors no longer foot the bill Compensation for medical costs and loss of income].

Organ donation is at the centre of medical and societal attention. An important reason for this is the shortage of donors and thus organs. One of these shortages concerns cadaveric-donor livers. The alternative is living-donor liver transplantation. Until recently, the donors' healthcare costs and loss of income were impediments to living-donor liver transplantation. However, the Dutch government has now removed these obstacles, on the one hand by covering the medical costs associated with the donation, the travelling costs of the donor and a companion, and on the other hand by a subsidy to cover loss of income for the self-employed. This subsidy is limited to a maximum and does not include full compensation for salaried workers fully disabled for work as a result of medical complications of the donation. Complication insurance is needed similar to that developed for kidney donors.