Organ donors are quiet heroes
What would you do to save another person’s life? You could dash into a burning building and carry someone to safety or dive into a lake to pull a struggling person ashore. Or you could donate a kidney. That’s what Tanya Hashimoto of Duncan has agreed to do. If all goes as planned, Audrey Schroeder of Shawnigan Lake, the recipient of Hashimoto’s donation, will be liberated from an exhausting regime of dialysis and should be able to lead a normal, healthy life.
To donate a kidney while living is a truly heroic thing to do. It’s a considerable sacrifice to undergo major surgery when you are healthy so that another person — in this case, a stranger — can also be healthy.
While transplants are most successful when kidneys are contributed by living donors, it’s understandable that many people would be reluctant to donate. But no one should hesitate to ensure that their organs can be used after they die, unless strong religious or cultural beliefs dictate otherwise.
Various organs can be donated, but the majority of transplants are kidneys. Of the 4,500 Canadians on waiting lists for transplants, nearly 75 per cent are waiting for kidneys.
Kidney failure can happen to anyone at any age, and there is no cure. It’s a good thing we have dialysis to keep people alive, but it’s an ordeal. Transplants liberate people from that ordeal.
There aren’t enough kidneys to meet the need. Nearly 500 people are on the waiting list for a kidney in B.C., where the median wait time for a kidney is the longest in the country — 5.4 years.
The Kidney Foundation says nearly 50 per cent of Canadians don’t live past four years on dialysis. In Canada, those on wait lists have a 30 to 40 per cent chance of never receiving a kidney.
A survey conducted last year showed that 95 per cent of British Columbians support the concept of donating a kidney to someone in need. But the survey, conducted by Ipsos for the B.C. branch of the Kidney Foundation of Canada, also found that many British Columbians think they are registered as organ donors when, in fact, they are not.
Of those surveyed, 51 per cent said they were registered as donors, but only 19 per cent of British Columbians are registered on the province’s organ-donor registry. That’s because the registration process is misunderstood. Almost two-thirds of the people surveyed thought they were registered as organ donors on their driver’s licences, but B.C. hasn’t used that process since 1997.
Registering online as an organ donor is remarkably easy. You go to the transplant.bc.ca website. Then it’s a matter of typing in your personal health number and clicking on “submit,” then filling out the forms. You can also get there by going through the Kidney Foundation (kidney.bc.ca).
If you find computers and the Internet daunting, you can register at a B.C. Services Centre.
When you have registered, health-care professionals in B.C. hospitals can quickly find out if you are a registered donor by accessing the registry and typing in your Care Card number.
Don’t think you are too old to register as an organ donor.
In B.C., one-third of patients awaiting transplants are over the age of 60, but just 20 per cent of donors are in that demographic. But there is no reason seniors should be shy to sign up.
As long as your organs are healthy, there is no age limit for donations. You don’t have to wait for an opportunity to dash into danger to be a life-saving hero. It’s as simple as filling out some forms.