National organ and tissue donor awareness week marked in Sherbrooke
In recognition of national organ and tissue donor awareness week, which takes place every year from April 22 to the 28, the CIUSSS de L’estrie – CHUS hosted a gathering of several organ donation recipients and families of donors on Wednesday in an effort to encourage more people to become donors.
“People need to ask themselves the question, do I want to be a donor?” said Annie Chouinard, a nurse specialized in organ and tissue donation at the regional healthcare institution. “Then they need to talk to their family about that choice because, ultimately, it is the family that decides.”
According to Madelaine Ducharme, Coordinator of Intensive Care, Trauma Care and Organ Donation, 63 per cent of families in the Eastern Townships that refused to donate a family member’s organs in 2017 did so because they were not sure of their loved one’s wishes.
Chouinard added to that the fact that organ and tissue donation are still
widely misunderstood. As a part of not talking about the idea of being a donor, she pointed out that people choose not to because they think they do not qualify because of age or some other condition.
“The oldest donor in Quebec was 88,” she said, “and the oldest in Canada was 92.”
The average age, the nurse explained, is 53, and people can be organ or tissue donors even if they have active cancers, disbetes, or other serious health concerns. Ultimately, she said, it is better to ask than assume you don’t qualify, as the doctors will determine viability.
“Organ donation works, I am living proof,” said Former Sherbrooke Police Chief Michel Carpentier, who spoke to his experience of receiving a liver transplant 15 years ago.
“I remember the capital H hope I had for a person who would make the decision to be a donor,” he said, describing the experience as one of shock, incomprehension, and the powerlessness of waiting.
Carpentier compared being on the donor list to being in a lottery where instead of winning money, you win the organ you need to live.
“The way that this lottery works is that need to have all six numbers exactly right or you get nothing,” he said. In this case the numbers are 1: get on the waiting list, 2: a donor signs their card, 3: that donor tells their family, 4: the medical staff learn the proper procedures and identify a potential donor, 5: the medical staff discuss donation with the family and all necessary steps are taken to prepare the donor, and 6: the family respects the donor’s will.
“I can’t help but think of all the people who have died waiting on a donor,” the retired police officer said. “I can’t help but think of the people who are still waiting.”
On the other side of the experience, Benoit Lefebvre and Marie-pier Savaria shared the importance of talking to loved ones of all ages about donation. The two lost their eight year old son Justin last summer after he was found unconscious in the swimming pool at a friend’s birthday party. Although Justin was still young, his parents said that he had talked about the idea with them only weeks before his death.
“I can’t say it was easy, because no decision in that situation is easy, but the choice was clear,” Lefebvre said, explaining that Justin’s kidneys, heart, and liver went on to help save the lives of three other children under the age of eight.
Martine Ouellet’s son Hugo was also the one to bring the subject of organ donation up to his family, sitting them down to a serious discussion on the subject not long before the car accident that ended his life.
“He wanted to know why people leave their organs to the cemeteries or to be burned when others are in need,” Ouellet said, adding that the 21 year old argued it was selfish to do anything other than be a donor. “Hugo wanted to be an organ donor and we knew it.”
Even knowing that, though, the boy’s mother said the decision still tore her in two.
She spoke with frustration at that point, as she explained that the family had to approach the doctors to ask them about donation. Concerned that something made her son ineligible, she asked why they hadn’t brought it up only to discover that the option hadn’t been considered and that his condition had deteriorated to the point where most of his organs were no longer useful
In the end Hugo was able to donate his corneas.
“Not speaking to the family of a potential donor it the same as telling those people who are waiting that they are going to die,” Ouellet said. “To us, Hugo will always be a superhero.”
According to the CIUSSS de L’estrie – CHUS, Only 1.5 per cent of hospital deaths meet the criteria for organ donation. In 2017 13 deaths in the region resulted in the donation of 45 organs and 67 people were tissue donors. In December of last year, 786 people were on Quebec’s waiting list.
More information on tissue and organ donation is available by calling 819-346-1110 extension 13583 or by visiting transplantquebec.ca