Trillium website to provide more transplant statistics - Canada

The Record


Photo: Joe Menna Joe Menna's proposal to the Trillium Gift of Life Network asking for more information regarding organ transplants and patients who are on the provincial wait list will be implimented Monday July 9. RICHARD HUTTON/NIAGARA THIS WEEK

While a close family member awaited a lung transplant in 2010, Joe Menna craved information.

How many others with the same blood type need lungs? What are their ages? Why and when are people removed from the lists?

Frustrated by a dearth of Ontario statistics compared to other jurisdictions, Menna was compelled to act.

Thanks to his insight and tenacity, some of the information he sought will be available starting Monday on the Trillium Gift of Life Network website, www.giftoflife.on.ca.

The website will list age, gender and blood group of those on waiting lists and of donors.

Greater transparency and increased information can be a comfort, says Menna.

“My hope is that is it would help patients and families,” says the 36-year-old Niagara Falls high school teacher. “Hopefully, by providing extra information to patients and their families, maybe the system will be less frustrating.”

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{Register to be an organ,eye and tissue donor. To learn how, www.donatelife.net or www.organdonor.gov}