Endemol is making a television show in which three young patients will compete to win a kidney transplant.

The new programme from the Big Brother producer, which launches in Holland on Friday, will see a dying woman pick which of the competitors to give it to. The woman has terminal cancer and has been named only as Lisa.

The Big Donor Show contestants all currently receive dialysis treatment for renal problems. The show will also allow viewers to tell Lisa who they think she should pick with text messages.

The broadcaster which is airing the programme, BNN, has insisted it will highlight the shortage of organ donors and encourage people to come forward.

But Reiner Hofmann, from the Dutch Transplant Foundation, said it was “a scandal”. He declared: “It is no better than selling organs — they are taking advantage of people in a desperate situation for entertainment.”

The new show is reportedly an idea from John de Mol, a founder of Endemol who sold it in 2000 but recently bought part of it back.