Gift of life - a rare commodity in SA
Concerted effort needed to address the dearth of organ donors
AT ANY given time, there are around 4 300 people waiting for organ donations in South Africa. These patients usually need new livers, kidneys, lungs or hearts. But organ donors are in very short supply.
This isn’t unique to South Africa. Many countries around the world are unable to meet the demand for donor organs. So what explains South Africa’s organ donor shortage?
Religious and cultural beliefs play a role, because they influence the decisions people make about the remains of their loved ones. Sometimes families prefer that a relative’s body remain whole and intact; in other cases it’s considered important to bury a person within a certain time frame. But attributing the shortages to these factors alone grossly oversimplifies the issue.
There are many complex elements that keep donor numbers low. These permeate the social fabric from a population and legislation level down to the practice of health care workers.
It’s important to tackle each of these elements to ease the country’s organ donor shortage.
At a societal level, religious and socio-cultural practices do play a role in the shortage of donor organs. But in my research into the factors influencing low donor numbers, other issues have come to the fore. These include a suspicion of the biomedical system in South Africa. Sometimes there are perceptions that hospitals can’t be trusted, or that some aspects of practice are unethical.
Some of these opinions are justified; the so-called kidney gate saga of 2001 is one example of poor medical ethics. This scandal saw “donors” from poor families in Brazil flown to South Africa and paid a nominal sum for a kidney, which was implanted in most cases into wealthy Israeli recipients.
South Africa’s organ transplant legislation is vague. This has left a vacuum.
It’s clear, then, that no single factor is keeping organ donor numbers low in South Africa. Policymakers, health care professionals, civil society advocacy groups and academics must work collaboratively to address these issues if the situation is to be improved. – The Conversation
• Harriet Etheredge, Bioethicist and Health Communication Specialist, University of the Witwatersrand