Organ donation's "silver bullet"?
CMAJ
There were 4529 Canadians on the waiting lists for organ transplants in 2010, while 511 people withdrew their names from a waiting list and 247 people died while on a list.
Photo credit: ©2012 Thinkstock
Testing presumed consent for organ donation in a province or region where residents support the notion could help resolve the debate over whether a national "opt-out" system would improve Canada's chronic organ shortage, an expert says.
"From a national point of view, because consent to organ and tissue donation laws are provincially based, we would welcome having a province take a lead on this to demonstrate whether it is effective," says Dr. Sam Shemie, medical director for organs and tissues donation at Canadian Blood Services (CBS) and a pediatric intensive care physician in the Division of Pediatric Critical Care at Montreal Children's Hospital in Quebec. "If Atlantic Canada decides to pursue this, good on them. It would be an example for the rest of us."
A recent survey indicated that a majority of people in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador would support an "opt-out" approach to organ donation. Such programs presuppose the presumed consent of residents to be organ donors unless they take proactive steps to indicate their objections.
Currently, the converse is true. Canadians can "opt in" to donate after they die by either signing the form on their driver's license, or through the explicit consent of surviving family. Traditionally, even if a person has signed a donor card, the final decision has typically been left to families, although consideration is being given to adopting the concept of "first person consent," i.e., automatically harvesting organs when a donor card has been signed (www.cmaj.ca/lookup/doi/10.1503/cmaj.061256). As part of its recent plan to create an "integrated inter-provincial organ donation and transplantation system," CBS proposes to craft strategies that would substantially increase organ donation rate (www.cmaj.ca/lookup/doi/10.1503/cmaj.109-4239).
Photo credit: ©2012 Thinkstock
"From a national point of view, because consent to organ and tissue donation laws are provincially based, we would welcome having a province take a lead on this to demonstrate whether it is effective," says Dr. Sam Shemie, medical director for organs and tissues donation at Canadian Blood Services (CBS) and a pediatric intensive care physician in the Division of Pediatric Critical Care at Montreal Children's Hospital in Quebec. "If Atlantic Canada decides to pursue this, good on them. It would be an example for the rest of us."
A recent survey indicated that a majority of people in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador would support an "opt-out" approach to organ donation. Such programs presuppose the presumed consent of residents to be organ donors unless they take proactive steps to indicate their objections.
Currently, the converse is true. Canadians can "opt in" to donate after they die by either signing the form on their driver's license, or through the explicit consent of surviving family. Traditionally, even if a person has signed a donor card, the final decision has typically been left to families, although consideration is being given to adopting the concept of "first person consent," i.e., automatically harvesting organs when a donor card has been signed (www.cmaj.ca/lookup/doi/10.1503/cmaj.061256). As part of its recent plan to create an "integrated inter-provincial organ donation and transplantation system," CBS proposes to craft strategies that would substantially increase organ donation rate (www.cmaj.ca/lookup/doi/10.1503/cmaj.109-4239).
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