Ontario rejects reverse organ donation - part 2
Posted on January 9, 2006
Filed Under Something to Think about |
mhp’s musings » Ontario rejects reverse organ donation
On September 27th, 2005 I wrote the post linked above in response to the decision of the Ontario government not to legislate reverse organ donation. I have not, no do I know anyone directly, requiring an organ donation, but I support the idea because it the fair thing for humanity. Perhaps you don’t feel that way. Then perhaps you should read the comment to that post I received a few days ago from Kevin Huber (blockquoted here in full):
Hi:
My name is Kevin Huber and I am from Guelph Ontario. I am blind and work for a computer company in Mississauga Ontario. Up until three years ago I had a working Kidney transplant. When the transplanted kidney stopped working, after twenty-three years of good helth, I had to go back on dialysis and my life changed dramatically. Not only have I had to make an adjustment from fulltime work to parttime work, I have had numerous health problems over the last three years. These include, a splenectemy, resulting in a couple of bouts of pancreatitis, a parathyroidectemy, resulting in several seizures, due to low calcium, etc. Not only that, I am told that I still have three years to wait for another transplant. I do not think that an individual’s rite to choose compares with the situation I just described. Besides, If I had had the rite to choose, I wouldn’t have chosen to be in this mess in the first place. Besides, don’t you think the government would save money by implementing a reverse organ donation policy? After all, it costs the health care system much less to maintain the health of a transplant recipient than it does to care for a dialysis patient.
Kevin Huber
From a social and moral perspective, how can we let the Rights of the dead outweigh the Rights of the living - unless the dead expressed their choice while living? On an economic perspective, as Kevin points out, how can we let this go on and be an unnecessary burden on the health care system. The system is crumbling because it is so cash straped and access to services takes too long, here is an easy way start to fix the 2 problems.
Are you still against the policy? Except for those that have opposition based on religious beliefs (I have an issue with this, but who am I to overturn thousands of years of belief…), how would you feel you were in the same situation, or worse near death with a failing kidney or liver? Like Kevin, you would not choose to be ill — but you do have a choice to help those that are ill. Problem is most don’t take the initiative to make that choice, which is why the organ donation policy should be reversed. Those with a strong opposition to organ donation (for what ever reason) will have the initiative to be registered as a non-donor, while everyone else willl help save others.
I encourage you again to contact:
The Trillium Gift Of Life Network
By phone @ 416-363-4001 (in Toronto) or 1-800-263-2833
To CEO Frank Markel by email
The Minsiter of Health, George Smitherman by email
The Premier of Ontario, Dalton McGuinty by email
UPDATE - 2006-01-13: CBC Radio’s Metro Morning in Toronto featured Kevin’s story along with an interview with NDP MPP Peter Kormos on the topic. Listen via Real Audio or subscribe to the Metro Morning Podcast
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2 Responses to “Ontario rejects reverse organ donation - part 2”
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Hi again:
I just read the article which appeared in The Globe last September regarding Reverse Organ Donation, thanks to the kindness of Mark, who graciously sent it to me. I also shared it with members of my family and we all agree that the reasons given for the government’s refusal to consider adopting the practice of Reverse Organ Donation amount to little more than an excuse to sit back and do nothing. I understand that there are challenges that need to be met, such as the lack of a registry to record people’s wishes, but is that an excuse to do nothing? If that registry doesn’t exist, then take steps to create it. As far as those pools mentioned in the article are concerned, hhow are the polls conducted and was the concept of Reverse Organ Donation explained properly to the people who were polled? I can understand where it would scare people if it wasn’t properly explained to them.
Now that NDP member Peter Kormos has stated that he will re-introduce his bill regarding Reverse Organ Donation in the next legislature, we need to pressure our government leaders to pass that bill.
Kevin Huber
Hi:
Further to this issue of reverse organ donation, I just read an excellent article on the BMA website. The article applies to Britain but the article goes into detail about how reverse organ donation or presumed consent organ donation can be implemented. I suggest that people who have questions about how such a policy can be implemented should read this article.
The link is
http://www.bma.org.uk/ap.nsf/content/organdonationpresumedconsent. If you can’t get it that way, do a google search on reverse organ donation. That is how I came across it.
Kevin Huber