Patients may be dying on waiting lists because the number of people donating their organs after their death has dropped by over a quarter in the past year.

Organs from just 29 people went to others in New Zealand last year.

The figure is a marked drop from 40 in 2004 and the lowest in more than a decade of statistics collected by the Australia and New Zealand Organ Donation Registry - the previous lowest was 34 in 1993.

The decline is even more substantial than the experience in Australia, where just 204 dead people donated their organs last year - down from 218 in 2004.

Professor Graeme Russ of the donation registry, which is based in Adelaide's Queen Elizabeth Hospital, said the figures were worrying and meant New Zealand's rate of donation was now only about seven people per million.

That is down from about 10 per million last year and far behind world leaders Spain, where the figure was over 34 per million.

"It means that they [patients] will have to wait longer for, say, a kidney transplant and for some that would mean that they would die on the waiting list and that would also be the case for patients awaiting heart and liver transplantation," Professor Russ said.

The rate of donation was clearly not high enough.

"Australia and New Zealand seem to have a very low organ donor rate by international standards and it's not easy to understand why," he said.

But Professor Russ said it was possible the drop in New Zealand could just be random fluctuation as New Zealand traditionally had a rate of donation of about nine or 10 per million.

"Whether the drop is real or not is something we'll see over time, but I think the overall low rate in both Australia and New Zealand is of concern, indicating that governments should probably be doing something to try and increase that."

He said the donation registry was still collating the data on live donors for 2005 but donations from live people - usually only kidneys - were usually about 35 per cent of the total from deceased people.

New Zealand was likely to see an increase in live donors due to high-profile cases such as that of radio personality Grant Kereama, who donated a kidney to rugby star Jonah Lomu. In Australia, former international cricketer David Hookes donated his organs after his death, and that was also likely to cause an increase in donors.

Professor Russ said New Zealand could learn from Spain, which had substantially increased its donor rate by working in hospitals to identify potential donors.

Number of people donating organs after death:
2005 29
2004 40
2003 40
2002 38
2001 37
2000 41
1999 39
1998 46
1997 42
1996 36
1995 35
1994 35
1993 34

Source: Australia and New Zealand Organ Donation Registry and Organ Donation New Zealand.

- NZPA

Courtesy of the NZ Herald - www.nzherald.co.nz