Britain Retools Transplant Agency After 'Whites Only' Donation

London - The government said Tuesday it is reorganizing the national body overseeing organ transplants after an investigation found a liver and kidneys were accepted from a man whose relatives insisted they go only to a white person.

The report, by a panel led by a senior Department of Health official, criticized senior managers of the U.K. Transplant Support Service Authority, or UKTSSA, and department officials for allowing the family to make such a condition.

"Racism of any kind is appalling," said Health Minister Philip Hunt. "The government is totally against any kind of condition being attached to organ donation."

The then Health Secretary Frank Dobson ordered a report after the case was reported in a newspaper last year.

Health official Chris Kelly reported that after the man was declared brain dead at a hospital in Sheffield, northern England, in July 1998, a local UKTSSA coordinator wrongly agreed to accept the organs on the basis that they go only to white recipients.

They were later transplanted into three white patients.

Kelly said that the organs likely would have gone to the same recipients even if the donor's family had not made the condition.

But in searching for suitable matches, the coordinator breached protocol by not informing a unit where two children with "Asian-sounding names" were waiting for transplants, he said.

The unit said later it would not have accepted the organs because of clinical considerations.

Lord Hunt said UKTSSA would be renamed UK Transplant and be given added responsibilities to improve organ donation rates and improve awareness of donor cards.

It will also receive government funding to support local coordinators and train them to operate efficiently and correctly, he said.

At the end of 1999, 5,396 people were waiting for transplants. But a shortage of donors meant that only 2,410 transplants were carried out.

Britain Retools Transplant Agency After 'Whites Only' Donation

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