Charity calls for state-backed organ donation drive

WITH 30 cystic fibrosis sufferers on a waiting list for double lung transplant, the Cystic Fibrosis Association of Ireland (CFAI) had called for a state-sponsored programme to raise organ donation awareness.

CFAI chief executive Philip Watt said it was “completely unacceptable that this role is left to a charity (the Irish Kidney Association)” and that the Government “continues to abrogate its responsibility in respect of organ donor awareness”.

“It should be a Government responsibility to raise awareness about organ donation and transplantation as no charity could match the resources and impact of a committed Government department,” Mr Watt said.

In addition, there was a need for a single national authority to monitor and coordinate the harvesting and transplantation of donated organs across 36 hospitals, a view shared by transplant specialists at the Mater Hospital.

A spokesperson for the Mater said the protocol in terms of which organs are harvested and when would be “best done by an authority that doesn’t have a vested interest” and Ireland and Malta are the only two countries in Europe without a national transplant authority to maximise organ usage.

The spokesperson said the rate of donation was quite high, but the quality of harvested lungs was “not where it should be”.

He also said there were fewer organs available for donation because of improved medical treatments and reduced road fatalities.

In addition, Ireland and Britain have one of the lowest lung utilisation rates (the number of transplants made from the number of lungs made available by donors) in Europe. Of the approximate 80 individual donors who die in Ireland each year in circumstances that allow for organ transplantation, the number of lungs actually utilised is just 12.5%.

There have been only two double lung transplants carried out in the last two years in Ireland (Mater) and two undertaken in Britain (Newcastle) this year involving transplant patients flown over from Ireland.

Mr Watt said these two hospitals could not deal with the inadequate resources of the transplant and organ donation system “that have resulted in such a huge backlog of cases”.

“There are people with CF dying in Ireland on the waiting list because of the lack of a transplant, often people in their 20s and early 30s who could have their lives considerably extended by a transplant,” Mr Watt said.

Mr Watt was commenting ahead of the CFAI national conference which gets under way in Kilkenny today.

At the conference he will highlight the legislative vacuum for transplant in Ireland and the “urgent need to appoint two dedicated lung transplant surgeons in Ireland to tackle the backlog”.

The Mater is recruiting a transplant surgeon to replace consultant cardiothoracic surgeon Mr Jim McCarthy who has taken over as director of the hospital’s lung and heart transplant programme pending the retirement in August of Mr Freddie Wood.

Mr Watt said there was also an urgent need for a national organ donor website “where at a click of a button people could donate their organs”, and a way to ensure the next of kin can give their assent.

The Department of Health said on foot of extensive public consultations conducted during 2009, Minister Mary Harney intends to bring a proposed general scheme of a Human Tissue Bill to Government for its approval this year.