Amid pandemic, organ donors and recipients growing anxious
Organ transplant delays due to COVID-19 have added to the anxiety experienced by donors and recipients, but the province’s case-by-case approach to life-saving procedures and rapid sharing of information is helping the situation, support organizations say.
B.C. Transplant says transplants are being postponed if the risk of COVID-19 may outweigh the benefit of having the procedure, and its donation and transplant program is limiting non-essential clinic visits by switching to virtual health platforms. Meanwhile, fewer transplants are being done as hospitals prepare for a potential rapid rise in COVID-19 cases.
Debbie Bielech, founder and executive director of the Children’s Organ Transplant Society, said she’s been hearing from families worried by how COVID-19 is affecting waiting times and access to hospitals.
“I think one of the most terrifying pieces for us is having one of our children or adult transplant recipients get sick and go into the hospital, and not being able to be by their side because they’re not letting visitors in,” Bielech said.
Bielech said she has heard from families who are feeling isolated and parents who are anxious about how they will keep their immunosuppressed children safe until a vaccine becomes available.
She’s also heard from families whose children have recently had a transplant and worry about exposure to COVID -19 when they travel back to the hospital for blood work and checkups.
But information is being shared readily and quickly online and families are turning to B.C. Transplant’s website daily to see how the pandemic is impacting their situation, she said.
“The hospitals are really great about working with patients also,” she said.
Bielech said the pandemic has helped the public better understand how critical it is to protect people who have had a transplant through measures such as frequent handwashing and self-isolation.
“All the information about how careful you have to be with the virus is a validation of what our families and our loved ones who have had organ transplants face for the rest of their lives,” Bielech said.
“The public is starting to get what the immunosuppressed people of the world live with on a day-to-day basis.”
B.C. Transplant said in an emailed statement that the agency understands how worrying the COVID-19 pandemic is for patients.
Non-essential surgeries have been put on hold but urgent and life-saving organ donations and transplants are moving forward on a case-by-case basis. Clinicians are assessing the cases and the situation at their own hospitals to make sure a transplant is safe and appropriate, the agency said.
“The decision to proceed with transplants on a case-by-case basis is not one health-care professionals make lightly, because we know how important these surgeries are for people who are waiting for a transplant,” B.C. Transplant said.
“The decision to go forward with deceased donation and transplant must balance the risk posed to potential recipients who will likely become immunocompromised with the risks of delaying transplantation. It also depends on the prevalence of COVID-19 in a particular area, and individual hospital capacity to support transplant recipients who would recover in ICUs and organ donors who are usually referred to B.C. Transplant from hospital ICUs.”
Karen Stacey, founder and president of the Happy Liver Society of B.C., said the families they work with are also doubly worried about transplant delays and the transmission of COVID-19.
The society is getting lots of calls from patients, Stacey said. Their policy is to give them the best information available at the moment, which usually means talking to B.C. Transplant.
“We don’t want to frighten anybody because it’s a frightening enough time,” Stacey said.
“Everybody’s just holding their breath trying to figure out what to do. I think everything will work itself out and people will get the transplants that they need, and they’ll get their needed surgeries, they’ll get their chemo treatments that they need. I think that’s all going to happen. It’s just not going to happen today.”
B.C. Transplant said the pandemic hasn’t had a direct impact on the availability or supply of organs, but preparations related to the pandemic have meant hospitals don’t have as much capacity to carry out donations and transplants, so fewer are being done. B.C.’s living kidney transplant programs have been temporarily suspended, the agency said.
In the first three months of 2020, doctors in B.C. had done 101 transplants, compared to 126 during the same period last year. There were 810 patients waiting for a transplant and 5,256 patients being followed post-transplant.