Plan proposed to make organ donation less “ad hoc” in Canada

Canadian Medical Association Journal


There were 2153 organ transplants in Canada in 2010 and 4529 Canadians on the waiting lists, while 247 people who died while on the list. Photo credit: ©2012 Thinkstock

It appears that a national agency or mechanism for allocating donated organs for transplantation isn’t in the cards. But after four years of wrangling with provincial governments and transplant programs, Canadian Blood Services (CBS) has proposed a strategic plan for an “integrated inter-provincial organ donation and transplantation system” that, if created by 2017, would at least help to reduce current inequities in access to organs and vastly improve Canada’s current “mediocre” performance with respect to organ transplantation rates.

Although the proposal does not feature any manner of mandatory organ sharing between jurisdictions or pan-Canadian organ allocation, CBS Chief Executive Officer Dr. Graham Sher told a press conference there’s enough “good will” within the transplant community to implement at least a measure of agreed-upon reforms to improve the system’s overall performance.

And if governments cough up $800 million over 10 years, it would result in about 7000 additional organ transplants in Canada, Sher said.

The proposal, Call to Action: A strategic plan to improve organ and tissue donation and transplantation performance for Canadians also proposes to essentially create a separate system for dealing with tissue transplantations (www.organsandtissues.ca/s/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/OTDT-INDX-final-C2A.pdf).

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