Urgent call for organ ‘donor coordinators’

SPECIAL “donor coordinators” charged with speaking with relatives of possible organ donors who have died should be introduced, the Irish Kidney Association (IKA) said yesterday at the launch of Organ Donor Awareness Week.

The IKA’s chief executive Mark Murphy made the comments after it emerged that 243 organ transplants took place in Ireland last year thanks to 90 deceased organ donors.

Another 18 living donor transplants took place in 2009, but there are more than 600 people in Ireland awaiting life-saving transplant operations.