Anatomy of a Shortfall: Mapping the Realities of Organ Donation in South Africa

Donation after circulatory death (DCD) has been widely adopted in Europe, the US, and Australia as a critical strategy to expand the deceased donor pool. In South Africa, it has barely begun. Despite a chronic shortage of deceased donors, a transplant waiting list that grows faster than it turns over, and mounting evidence that DCD produces excellent outcomes, the practice remains underutilised — and until recently, unreported from the African continent.

This changed in 2024, when a landmark paper in the South African Medical Journal documented the first controlled DCD kidney transplants performed in Africa. The team behind that study — Prof David Thomson, Dr Tinus du Toit, and Prof Zunaid Barday of Groote Schuur Hospital — join this Meet the Researchers panel to unpack what they found, what it means for the local transplant landscape, and what systemic and ethical barriers still stand between South Africa and a functioning DCD programme.

This session is now available on demand. It is designed for any clinician working in critical care, nephrology, surgery, or general medicine who needs to understand the current state of organ donation in South Africa, what new pathways are now available, and what role non-transplant practitioners play in making them work.