‘Keep trying’ New organ donor registry crashes after huge response

Source: Healthzone.CA | THERESA BOYLE, Reporter

The province’s new organ donor registry couldn’t keep up with a surprising response on its first day of operation and thousands of Ontarians were unable to sign up to be donors, the health minister says.

“We have just been overwhelmed, which is a great problem to have,” Deb Matthews said Tuesday.

It was an embarrassment of riches for the government, which unveiled the registry with much fanfare at a news conference earlier in the day.

Intended to make it easier and more convenient for Ontarians to give their consent to donate organs and tissues, the system was swamped and unable to process thousands of requests. Only 500 people succeeded in signing on, Matthews confirmed.

She urged those unable to do so to try again. The registry can be found on the website, beadonor.ca.

“My message is keep trying. We are doing everything humanly possible, working around the clock to fix the problem,” Matthews said, adding that the system worked perfectly during a soft launch on the weekend.

The unanticipated demand led to network configuration problems, making it difficult for some people’s computers to communicate with the registry, said Matthews’ press secretary, Neala Barton.

Until now, willing donors have had to register their consent in person at a ServiceOntario centre or by downloading, completing and mailing a consent form.

The provincial auditor last year recommended creating an online registry as did an expert panel on transplant wait times in 2009 and a consultant to the Trillium Gift of Life Network in 2006.

In Toronto, only 13 per cent of residents have registered their consent to donate organs for transplant, lower than the province-wide average of just under 20 per cent.

The province wants to increase those numbers to help the more than 1,500 people on the waiting list for transplants.

“I have issued a challenge. There are 1,500 people waiting and by the end of the week I hope we will have 1,500 new people registering their consent,” Matthews said.

Judging from the response, that goal will easily be reached, she said.

“We are really thrilled that we are getting higher than expected demand on the site. I hear that we were trending on Twitter. What it tells me is that people really want to be part of this,” she said.

“I would far rather have too many people trying to do it than nobody paying attention.”