| Organ donation education needed 13.09.05
The chronic shortage of organ donors - which is forcing doctors to harvest inferior organs - will not be fixed by an organ donor register, health advocates say.
With fewer healthy young people dying on the roads, doctors are accepting organs from smokers, people with diabetes and high blood pressure, and even some who have tested positive for hepatitis B.
This month, the Government announced plans for an organ donor register to ensure people who wished to be donors would have their wishes respected after death.
However, 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 yesterday. "It's just too hard keeping track of people. They move and forget to tell you, and even then you still need the permission of the family. It ends up being this huge costly exercise for minimal outcome."
The foundation would prefer to see more money put into public education and raising awareness of the need for organ donations among potential donors, their families and the medical profession, Ms Gregan-Ford said.
Of the 400 people on the organ transplant waiting list, around 350 need new kidneys.
They typically wait between six months and five years.
"Dialysis keeps you alive but often your quality of life is not great. A kidney transplant transforms people's lives."
- NZPA
back to top
   |
| 
Katie Tookey's story is on video.
Kiwis like Katie depend on 'the gift of life'.
|
|
