SOON WE’LL ALL BE ORGAN DONORS
But Irish Kidney Association don’t want Minister’s opt-out scheme
PROPOSALS to introduce an ‘opt-out’ system for organ donation will be brought before Cabinet next month, Health Minister Simon Harris has said.
However, the Irish Kidney Association has already come out against the move, believing it could cause confusion for potential donors.
It said the opt-out system could actually undermine the ‘call to action’ that currently exists by getting people to carry a donor card.
The IKA believes replacing the current system whereby people actively choose to donate their organs with a system where they opt not to will send out the wrong signal. It says encouraging people to fill out a donor card acts as a ‘call to action’ that helps spread the message of how important organ donation is.
Under current ‘opt-in’ rules, people must consent to having their organs
donated after death, by carrying a donor card, by noting their intentions on their driver’s licence, or by informing family members of their wishes.
However, the number of organ transplants from deceased donors dipped last year compared to 2017. Provisional data for last year showed 231 transplants were carried out from 80 donors, compared to a record level of 308 transplants from 99 donors in 2017.
There were approximately 550 people on the waiting list for hearts, lungs, liver, kidney and pancreas transplants at the start of last month.
In an effort to boost the levels of life-saving organs such as hearts and kidneys available to patients in need, the proposed new laws would mean people are assumed to consent to donating unless they specifically state otherwise.
Minister Harris will bring the outline of the long-mooted ‘donor by default’ plans, agreed under the Programme for Government, to Cabinet next month – with a view to passing the legislation before the end of 2019.
He said: ‘While this has taken a lot longer than anticipated, I will bring forward proposals to ensure 2019 is the year we introduce an opt-out organ donation register.
‘It is my goal to make organ donation the norm in Ireland when people pass away in circumstances
‘My goal is to make donation the norm’
in which donation is a possibility.
‘Families will always be consulted before any organs are removed, and if there are objections the donation will not go ahead.’
The new Bill will introduce what is referred to as a ‘soft opt-out system’ of consent for organ donation. Under this system, consent will be deemed to have been given unless a person has, while alive, registered their wish not to become a donor after death.
If a person is on the opt-out register, their next of kin will not be approached to discuss organ donation and their organs will not be removed. But in cases where a person is not registered on the opt-out register, the next of kin will always be consulted before any organ is removed. If the next of kin objects, then the donation will not proceed.
The IKA claims that this is a flawed approach as, it argues, families will still have the final say on the matter and can object.
If the Minister persists in pushing ahead with the plan, the IKA wants the Government to also set
up a separate register for those who want to donate their organs.
The charity also argues that ‘opt out’ systems in countries such as Spain have not helped increase the rate of organ donation, and that proper organ donation infrastructure and trained personnel help boost rates of donation.
The chief executive of the IKA, Mark Murphy, told the Mail that it has significant reservations about the Minister’s move.
‘What the Minister will do within this Act is introduce a register of people who do not want to donate organs and we strongly feel that this is a lost opportunity because the Minister needs a “yes” registry to complete that. We feel that this would be a much better call to action. If the Minister just uses the “no” register, we feel the call to action is gone and people will feel they don’t need to get donor cards,’ he explained.
Getting people to register their wish to donate organs ‘is a much more powerful call to action and most other countries have it’, he said. ‘The “no” register on its own is our big issue,’ he added.
A spokesperson for the Health Minister said the timeline for introducing the law would depend on passing the legislation through the Dáil, but that ‘hopefully’ it will be done this year.
Backing the legislation in her column in today’s Mail, Sallyanne Clarke movingly recalls the moment she and her family agreed to donate her son Andrew’s organs following his suicide. Andrew was just 16 when he died in late 2012.
Sallyanne said that his kidneys and liver helped transform the lives of others and that organ donation is always the right option. ‘In 2018, there was a dip in the amount of organ donations, compared to 2017,’ she writes. ‘If
the new legislation that has been discussed for the past few years finally gets the green light, this should change immediately.
‘The proposed new law states that everyone will be considered a “donor” unless they have previously opted out or their families have a particular objection to
their organs being donated. Why would anyone object? This is very much needed.
‘When you die your organs are of no use to you any more, so why not let them be used by someone who desperately needs them?’
Minister Harris said that significant progress has been made by the HSE’s organ donation teams in recent years to increase the number of transplantations here.
‘The introduction of an opt-out system is the next step in a range of measures to build on that progress,’ he said.
Donating our son’s organs gave us such great comfort
THE gift of a new heart, kidneys, a liver, even corneas is one of the greatest anyone can receive, yet far too few of us carry organ-donor cards.
Now Health Minister Simon Harris says he finally will introduce the Human Tissue Bill to Government next month.
Under the proposed scheme, everyone who died would be presumed to have consented to organ donation, unless they specifically opted out.
In what is seen as a ‘soft’ opt-out system, the deceased person’s family would also be consulted, and if they refused permission, even if that ran contrary to the dead person’s own wishes, the organs would not be removed.
That is a sensible strategy, allaying the fears of those who raised concerns that the legislation would lead to forcible removal.
What it also means, though, is that we all must have the conversation with our families. No-one likes talking about their own potential death, but if it could result in the gift of life, it certainly is a chat worth having – so please make your intentions explicitly known.