More organ donors needed says director

13 September 2005

By SONIA GERKEN

If Stuart Moore's liver was not compatible with his son's, young Ethan may have to join an organ transplant waiting list in desperate need of donors.

This month the Government announced plans to establish an organ donor register to ensure people who wanted to be donors would have their wishes respected after death.

However, New Zealand Kidney Foundation spokeswoman Carmel Gregan-Ford said the register was "not a good use of public money".

"This has been tried previously and it failed," she said.

There were 400 people on the organ transplant waiting list.

Kidney and liver transplant programme director Stephen Munn said the average age of donors had risen by more than a decade to 43 during the past 10 years.

"It used to be young accident victims, now it's old people with strokes, old fat people with strokes and hepatitis."

Everyone agreed action was needed to improve donor rates but attempts to increase consents were unlikely to be enough, he said.