Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
NOW SAVE THEM
Top doctors make plea to MPS ahead of opt-out vote
MPS have been urged by Britain’s leading doctors to “save hundreds of lives each year” by voting to change organ donor laws.
Senior health figures spoke out after the Daily Mirror revealed 4,712 patients in 10 years died in England waiting for donor organs.
Dr Chaand Nagpaul, chair of the British Medical Association and our most senior doctor, said: “We believe that opt-out organ donation is the best way to reduce the chronic shortage of organs available for transplantation and will save hundreds of lives each year.
“It will maximise the number of donations from the majority happy for their organs to be used after their death, while permit- ting those who object to donating their organs to opt out quickly and easily.” An opt-out organ donation system, where all are considered donors unless they state otherwise, would save at least hundreds of lives a year, official estimates suggested yesterday. PM Theresa May has already pledged to change donor laws in England after a personal appeal by heart transplant boy Max Johnson, nine, of Winsford, Cheshire, whose life was saved last year.
Mrs May has said if the move is successful, it will be called Max’s Law. Her announcement followed the Mirror’s Change The Law For Life campaign, which has for the past two years urged the Government to take action.
Separately, an opt-out vote goes before the Commons in a Private Members’ Bill, brought by Labour MP Geoffrey Robinson, next Friday.
He has urged MPS to vote for the change now to ensure lives can be saved as quickly as possible. Wales already has the law and Scotland is also planning an opt-out system.
The scandal of thousands of patients dying needlessly while waiting for an organ transplant could finally be brought to an end by MPS in a vital vote next week. We are urging you to contact your MP to ask them to back a change that makes every citizen a potential donor. The most likely option is the “soft opt-out” introduced in Wales two years ago, where families can still refuse consent. Simon Gillespie, chief executive of the British Heart Foundation, told the Mirror: “By supporting this Bill, MPS can help to transform the lives of people suffering from debilitating conditions like heart failure, for which the only cure is to receive a new heart.” While 80% people in the UK support organ donation, only 30% have joined the Organ Donation Register, he said.