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NO GIVE, NO TAKE: Andy Tookey and his three and a half year old daughter Katie, who will someday need a liver transplant.
MIKE KNOTT/North Shore Times | |
'No give, no take' 29 March 2005
A North Shore man whose daughter needs a life saving liver transplant says people who refuse to be donors should be second in line to receive organs.
Andy Tookey says New Zealand should have a `no give, no take' system for organ donation. This means if you are not prepared to be an organ donor and then need a transplant, you go below others on the waiting list who are prepared to be donors. Mr Tookey began researching the donor system several years ago after discovering his newborn daughter, Katie, had a rare liver disease called biliary atresia. Katie, who is now three-and-a-half, will one day need a liver transplant. Mr Tookey formed GiveLife, an organ donation lobby group, to raise awareness of organ donations and to try to improve New Zealand's organ donation system. The no give, no take system he is promoting is based on a similar idea that is gaining popularity in the United States. United States organ lobby group Lifesharers is a non-profit voluntary network of organ donors whose members promise to donate on their death and fellow members get first access to their organs. Mr Tookey says it isn't fair that someone who won't donate their own organ can receive one when there is a registered organ donor who needs it. "A good analogy is that it's like awarding the lottery jackpot to someone who didn't buy a ticket." Mr Tookey says he realises some people aren't willing to be donors, but don't want to receive other people's organs either, which is fine. "You may not want to accept them for yourself, but when I've asked people if the organ was for your kids, that's different. There's not one person who's said no to that." Mr Tookey says Katie is holding her own at the moment. "It's constantly hanging over our heads. When she's sick, we don't know whether it's a stomach bug or her liver." He says she lives life to the fullest. "She seems to have an intuition. She's full on party, party, party all the time." The parliamentary health select committee will be reviewing the laws surrounding the Human Tissue Act later this year. GiveLife NZ can be contacted through its website www.givelife.org.nz.
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