Organ donation is a life-saving service, but it appears some areas of our province are more inclined to sign up to donate their organs than others.
British Columbia has 187 postal areas and five out of the six lowest forms a solid block in east Vancouver and north Richmond.
Based on 2006 census data, Global BC was able to create a map showing the number of people on the organ donor registry across the province with the darker the area representing the higher numbers.
Downtown Victoria forms B.C.’s highest rates, followed closely by the Kitsilano neighbourhood in Vancouver.
The city’s north shore, west side, and west end have above-average numbers of residents on the donor list, but east Vancouver, Burnaby, Richmond and Surrey all come in with very low rates.
"If you look at cities like Richmond and Burnaby, where it’s around 10%, those communities are have high rates of new immigrants, where English may not be their first language, and so sometimes that’s a challenge in terms of communicating," explained Allison Colina of BC Transplant. "Organ donation can sometimes be a concept that’s difficult to talk about, as well, because you’re discussing death and dying. There are a lot of factors at play, but not one that you can pinpoint."
As of July 13, there are currently 801,329 people in B.C. on the organ donor registry list, with kidneys being the most sought-after organ. There are 330 people on the kidney transplant waiting list, with 295 kidney transplants performed in 2010; 97 from living donors, and 92 from deceased donors.
However, the wait time for a kidney is also the longest, with the average time being about 65 months.
There has always been a shortage of organs in B.C., and according to BC Transplant this is due to the fact that less than one per cent of the average 25,000 deaths in B.C. each year will die in a way that leads to organ donation. Of those one percent, the majority will be deemed unsuitable for transplant for various reasons and this creates a shortage.
When Jordan Ward died as a result of a head injury after car-surfing his mother Eronne was shocked to discover her son was not an organ donor as it was something the family had talked about. She had to work with BC Transplant to be allowed to donate his organs as the coroner wanted his body for an autopsy.
Organ donation is something that is often much appreciated by the recipient’s family and friends, and although no names are ever divulged many people write letters of thanks to those who donated their organs so others could live.
There are numerous ways people can register to be an organ donor, and it appears the need for organ donation is rising all the time.
"There are also some communities, like Courtenay and Comox on Vancouver Island, where they’ve had local transplant recipients, and they and their families have been active in promoting organ donation,” said Colina.
"We don’t have any hard and fast evidence to show why there are differences," she added, "but generally what we see is that registration rates are higher in smaller communities, and taking our best educated guess we connect that to the ability to reach people more effectively, where maybe the market is a bit less cluttered than in Vancouver."
Information based on the first three characters of potential donors' postal codes was released to globalnews.ca by the BC Provincial Health Services Authority under access-to-information legislation.
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