‘Gay ban’ stops heart donation
When a son died in a tragic crash, his mum was told he couldn’t be a donor – because he was homosexual.
For four days Corey Eteveneaux lay in a Whangarei Hospital bed, his heart kept beating by life support.
Medical consensus was the 24-yearold could not survive injuries suffered in last month’s road crash.
Faced with this reality, Corey’s mother and partner decided to offer his heart valves and corneas for donation – only to be told he wasn’t suitable because he was a gay man.
The experience has left Corey’s mother, Cherie Eteveneaux, confused and angry, and prompted calls from gay rights advocates for a rethink on who can donate tissue and blood in New Zealand.
Currently, men who have sex with other men are excluded from donating blood or tissue for 12 months, regardless of whether they have used a condom.
‘‘I spoke with a woman from Organ Donation NZ and initially I thought she wanted to speak to me about Corey’s tattoos and when the last time was he had work done,’’ Eteveneaux said.
‘‘Instead she told me they couldn’t take Corey’s heart valves or corneas because of his lifestyle. Eventually she said it was because he’s a homosexual man.’’
Corey and his partner, Daniel Jacobs, 29, had been in a loving relationship for nearly two years, and were tested when they began dating, Eteveneaux said.
She felt the tissue donation criteria discriminated against gay men.
‘‘Corey was a fit, healthy young man and I thought his heart valves would have been snapped up. It just doesn’t make sense. There are people who are suffering out there and we could have potentially helped them.’’
Jacobs said it was an especially upsetting experience to go through at a time when he was coming to terms with losing his partner.
Even the medical staff at the hospital appeared to be caught unaware of the 12-month stand-down period for gay donors, he said. ‘‘They put us through all these questions. We were under a lot of stress at the time, and later to be told that we can’t go through with it, it was disheartening.
‘‘I can’t see why we as homosexual men need to be discriminated against for what we do behind closed doors. We’re still humans, we’re no different to any people walking down the street.
‘‘I know Corey would have loved to have helped someone, but some poor family has lost out.’’
RainbowYouth executive director Frances Arns said the 12-month standdown period was ‘‘ridiculous’’.
‘‘Within two to three months you can tell that you’ve got HIV. It just kind of signals that this is driven by homophobia,’’ she said.
Dr Richard Charlewood, the New Zealand Blood Service’s tissue bank medical director, said the exclusion criteria did not target gay men but were about excluding those involved in high-risk activities.
He said HIV infection in New Zealand was predominantly found in two groups: intravenous drug users and men who had sex with men. ‘‘When HIV was first identified, the single biggest risk reduction was achieved by targeting high risk behaviour, far more so than testing.’’
Despite state of the art technology, a ‘‘window period’’ exists when testing may not be able to detect
HIV in a person during the early stages of the disease.
Previously, men who engaged in sex with other men couldn’t donate tissue or blood for 10 years. That exclusion period was lowered to five years in 2008, and then in 2014, to 12 months.
Charlewood said another review of the exclusion criteria was planned in the next few years.
‘‘We do take into account that this is a sensitive issue,’’ he said. ‘‘If we do relax the criteria we have to be sure we’re not increasing the risk to the recipient.’’
Across the
Tasman, experts aren’t ruling out accepting organs from HIV-positive patients in the near future. Speaking in November, Professor Greg Snell, who heads the lung transplant service at Melbourne’s The Alfred hospital, said organs weren’t currently accepted from patients with HIV but it could happen, because the condition is treatable.
I know Corey would have loved to have helped someone, but some poor family has lost out. Daniel Jacobs