We are all potential life savers
A Montrose P.E.I. couple’s hasty trip to Halifax last weekend in hopes of Kevin Clements receiving a liver transplant, only to learn later the donor liver was not viable, points to one reality in particular: the 52-year-old Montrose resident is still in urgent need of a liver.
The chain of events set an emotional roller-coaster in motion for the couple, and for everyone who was hoping and praying for a better outcome. They needed to be in Halifax and ready, just in case the liver was deemed to be viable.
Earlier this fall, the couple helped raise awareness about the need for Islanders who are willing to have their organs and tissue donated at the time of their death to join the Prince Edward Island Organ and Tissue Donor Registry.
Islanders can register to be an organ and/or tissue donor online at: https://www.princeedwardisland.ca/en/service/register-organ-andor-tissuedonor.
Potential donors also have the right to change their minds.
Organs and tissue hold no lasting value to individuals after they have died, but they can mean better quality life, and life itself, for individuals waiting for a life-saving transplant.
There are waiting lists for transplants right across the country, lists that could be significantly shortened if everyone who would be willing to be a donor dedicated just a few precious minutes to joining the registry online or in filling out a form while renewing their drivers licences. Anyone over the age of 16 can register. With the electronic registry in place since 2016, the red organ donor stickers on licenses and health cards are being phased out.
Individuals can also indicate on the registry that they do not wish to be an organ and/or tissue donor. There might be religious, cultural or personal reasons why some people would not wish to be a donor and those wishes need to be respected. Of course, being registered as a donor is no guarantee that organs will be retrieved for transplant. To be considered an organ donor after death, one must die in hospital while on life support, and have an irreversible brain injury.
All the more reason for those who are willing to donate to be registered as donors, just in case the situation presents itself.
Another way of approaching the organ shortage, though, would be to have everyone in Canada over the age of 16 automatically considered to be potential donors, but with the ability to opt out. Instead of checking to see whether an individual had signed on as a donor, authorities would be checking to see if they were not.
It could results in more organs being available and potentially more lives saved.
Speaking to life-saving
Search and rescue technicians made two saves in one day this week. They hoisted a Lennox Island man to the safety of their helicopter after rescuing him from the waters of Malpeque Bay and then they stopped off in Summerside for lunch where they assisted a fellow diner who was choking. All in a day’s work for those life-savers.