FIX ORGAN DONATIONS

It’s vital that Alberta gets its organ donation system functioning properly. The operation is split between Calgary and Edmonton, which not surprisingly, has given rise to inefficiencies and duplication.

There’s some good news: the provincial government has issued a request for proposals that asks experts to step forward with a plan to fix the system.

“Over the past decade, Alberta’s performance in organ donation has declined from being a national leader to now at the lower end of the spectrum,” the request states. “Currently, there is no single, integrated provincial electronic organ donation information management system in Alberta. Such absence has resulted in a number of business and operational challenges.”

Such an admission of failure is worrying, of course. Organ donation saves lives. In fact, a single organ and tissue donor can save up to eight people and make life better for up to 75 others, according to Alberta Health.

In 2015 — the last year for which figures are available — organ donors saved 380 Albertans, an 11 per cent increase over the previous year.

The government expects to award a twoyear contract to repair Alberta’s dysfunctional system.

“We’ve had two information systems collecting different kinds of information — you’re not comparing apples to apples in every case and not talking to each other,” said Alberta Health spokesman Tim Kulak of the problems.

Given the importance of organ donations, the government’s time frame seems a little lax. It should act with the greatest speed possible, while ensuring it’s making matters better, not worse, and keeping value for money in mind.

“I am on dialysis and have been on the transplant wait list for three years, and my general health deteriorates as time passes. I don’t have the time for the bureaucrats to fool around and spend money trying to reinvent the wheel,” says Joe Campbell, whose letter appears on today’s Opinion pages, of the challenge. “Delaying tactics to save money on a program, while wasting money on more consultants is the worst trick you can play on those of us on death row.”

The government must take Campbell’s remarks to heart.

We don’t need to adopt presumed consent, where it’s assumed people wish to donate their organs, unless they specifically opt out. Such a system might be effective, but people should willingly choose to become donors, not leave family members with one more difficult decision to make at the time of their death.

The NDP didn’t create this problem — it’s been years in the making — but they must fix it.