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Don Martin
Calgary Herald
New legislation to increase lifesaving organ donations is being demanded by an Alberta government task force.
The Advisory Committee on Organ and Tissue Donation's confidential report delivers 99 recommendations, leading off with a call for more money and provincewide policies to pressure physicians into asking the difficult question of potential donors or their families.
"Current donation in Alberta is based on goodwill and not treated as essential health care services and is therefore not adequately funded," former health minister Halvar Jonson noted in a June summary of the final report. "Opportunities for organ and tissue donation in Alberta are being lost."
If the new system is approved, the committee predicts another 90 heart, liver, lung and kidney transplants would be performed each year in Alberta, a province where 22 people died last year due to the chronic shortage of vital organ donations. Almost 100 Albertans were waiting for heart, lung or liver transplants at the end of last year.
Unlike proposed regulations in Ontario, the new Alberta bill will stop short of forcing doctors to request organs from the next of kin, but it would add provincewide consistency to organ procurement policies now largely a hit-and-miss operation that varies by hospital or even doctor.
"As a basic principle, all reasonable efforts should be expended to honour the known wishes of the deceased," the report notes. "Standard policies will be developed and adopted in all health facilities regarding donation practices."
The committee, chaired by Calgary MLA Heather Forsyth, wants medical schools mandated to educate interns on the delicate process of discussing organ harvesting with potential donors or their relatives.
Establishing the new province-wide organ donation network would cost $9 million in the first three years of operation, but would save considerably more that it costs by eliminating dialysis treatment for kidney recipients, the report notes.
The committee urges the province to enhance Calgary and Edmonton transplant centres with pre-operative transplant and tissue retrieval centres in Lethbridge, Medicine Hat, Red Deer, Grande Prairie and Fort McMurray.
All regional health authorities will be forced to identify and provide critical care for potential organ and tissue donors until the final decision is made for the terminally ill or the brain dead.
The committee also deals with the trend toward living donors in livers, kidneys and femoral heads obtained through hip replacements by outlawing undue pressure on those with healthy organs to spare.
"Means must be established to guard against coercion and to ensure that no coercion has been exercised against a potential donor," it says.
"Organs and tissues from a live donor are gifts, they must not be sold."
The committee urges increased support and recognition for the families of organ donors, and says sensitive cultural issues must be dealt with by the province.
The final report is expected to be released later this week for public discussion with Health Minister Gary Mar's blessing.
Organ transplant activity in Alberta 1999:
Project transplant increases if committee plan is adopted:
Copyright © 2000 Calgary Herald New Media.
This article posted July 26, 2000.