More and more people are choosing to donate their bodies to science following their death, according to a count made by the Belga agency at the start of the year. Belgian universities received a total of 728 bodies for research purposes in 2022. KU Leuven had the highest number of donations last year, followed by UGent and ULiège. Only the UAntwerpen recorded a drop in the number of donations in 2022.
Thus, in 2022, 92 bodies were donated to ULiège, compared to 80 bodies in 2021 (+15%). “We return to a pre-covid level if we compare these figures to the year 2019, during which ULiège received 96 bodies, for example“explains Valérie Defaweux, from the Faculty of Medicine of ULiège. “During 2020, the number of donations decreased due to the coronavirus. The faculties of medicine had to refuse the bodies because donations were at that time prohibited“, she analyzes.
The researcher also points to an explosion of requests within the Faculty. These respond to a “growing need for training on cadavers linked in particular to the development and evolution of surgical techniques“, explains the researcher.
UCLouvain also experienced an increase in the number of body donations in 2022. The university thus received 79 bodies (compared to 61 in 2021). UMons, on the other hand, saw its figure stagnate with 12 donations. A stagnation which is explained by the “lack of space in the cold room“, explains Philippe Boelpap, prosector at the faculty of medicine. The ULB, for its part, recorded 79 bodies in 2022, a figure which confirms a return to normal since during the pre-covid years, the number of donations of body was similar.
Same observation in the north of the country. KU Leuven, for example, received 134 bodies in 2022, compared to 129 in 2021, an increase of around 3.9%. At UGent, 133 bodies were accepted last year, compared to 122 in 2021 (+10%). The University of East Flanders even had to introduce a temporary admissions freeze. In addition, the UHasselt also saw this number drop from 31 in 2021 to 40 last year (+29%). The VUB, for its part, received 74 bodies last year.
“We have noticed a slight increase in recent years“, says Aron De Smet, anatomist of the VUB. “We are now reaping the fruits of the media attention the subject received ten years ago.“So, according to Mr De Smet, there is now broad public support for the donation of bodies to science. Even in Brussels, where many people live with religious beliefs that make donation impossible, it seems that it there are enough people in favor of considering such a procedure.
Only UAntwerpen recorded a drop of 21%. The university received 85 bodies last year, up from 108 in 2021.”This decrease is likely due to excess mortality during the pandemic and the fact that many body donors died prematurely due to the coronavirus. These bodies were not allowed to be used“, explains Luc Van Nassauw, president of the Anatomy Research Center in Antwerp.
