Minister Wrong to Reject Organ Donor Register

Minister Wrong to Reject Organ Donor Register

Public submissions on how to improve our organ donor system are due to close later this week.

The public are invited to have their say on what improvements to our current system can be made.

Just don't ask for a donor register...

The day the public were invited to contribute, the Minister of Health was reported in the media as saying "A stand alone register is off the table."
He went on to say “weight of evidence had shifted away from a stand alone register.”

I believe he is wrong. He should also not make that decision before the public have their say.

A donor register will be an essential jigsaw piece in the overall improvements that need to be made.

Without a register where will people be able to register their consent to being a donor? Nowhere.
In which case we will be stuck with the status quo of asking the families what they want to do. We know from this present system that 60% of families decline donation.

In fact it was the same Jonathan Coleman that when the issue of a donor register was raised previously in Parliament he said:

“The Ministry of Health said that there was no evidence. (of a register improving the donor rate.) Well, we heard that several jurisdictions around the world are already instituting this type of donor register. If it is good enough for the Canadians, for places in America, and for states in Australia, then one would have to wonder why we are not doing this in New Zealand.”

The Ministry of Health have spent a lot of time looking into this over the past few months and discovered that in Australia if a person was known to be a registered donor then the consent rate was 93%.

At the other end of the scale where families were not aware of potential donors wishes the consent rate was only 46%
In New Zealand you can not register as a donor and 46% is our current rate.

Even if he was correct and there was no weight of evidence that a register will improve the donor rate the same could be said for all the other proposals that are on the table.
There is no evidence that giving more money to the donor service will improve the rate. No evidence a public awareness campaign will improve the rate and so on.
The point is that no one singular action will improve the organ donor rate but when all these items are implemented together it will improve the rate.

It has been indicated that instead of a register they will 'improve the driving licence system.'There is certainly no evidence that putting sticking plasters on the driving licence system will improve outcomes.

There are many problems with continuing using the driving licence for donor indication, no matter how much they try and improve it.

The first obvious question will be. How will non drivers register?

I believe that the Minister should listen to the Health Select Committees three previous recommendations for a register and get it off the drivers licence.

If not persuaded by that then he should listen to what one MP said in Parliament the last time this issue came up:

“The problem we have at the moment is that if we register on our driver’s licence as an organ donor, there is absolutely no guarantee that someone will not overrule that wish once we have passed on.
The National Party position is that if one makes a decision about what will happen to one’s body after one dies, then that should be absolutely binding and no one else should be able to overrule that decision.”

(Jonathan Coleman, Parliament - November 2007)

***Public submissions close on Friday 29 July. To read the proposals and make a submission visit: www.moh.govt.nz and search organ donation***

ENDS

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