Ontario mulls reimbursing live liver, kidney donors Don't want costs to scare off badly needed potential donors, health minister says
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
Last Updated: Tuesday, April 10, 2007 | 4:32 PM ET
'When someone steps forward ... you really
don't want them worrying about financial
issues at the same time.'
— Frank Markel, Trillium Gift of Life Network
Ontario may offer financial compensation to encourage living donors to give up a kidney or part of a liver
for transplant, the provincial health minister said Tuesday.
George Smitherman told reporters
that the province wants to focus on
increasing the number of live organ
donors, as recommended by a
report he received from an advisory
panel last week.
He said the government may be
able to do that by recognizing the risks taken by donors and paying some of their expenses.
"Their livelihood could be placed at risk, and the health implications could be quite serious and the costs
quite substantial as well," Smitherman said.
"I don't think that anyone's interested in the idea that we're going to place a value on a particular organ
and create a marketplace around that.
"But I think that it is appropriate that we look at what is appropriate on the government's part to provide
people with some resources."
Many potential donors discouraged by cost
More than 1,700 people in Ontario are waiting for organ transplants.
Yet fewer than 300 live donors gave up either part of a liver or a kidney in the province in 2006, according
to Frank Markel, the president and CEO of the Trillium Gift of Life Network.
Markel, whose organization is Ontario's central organ and tissue donation agency, said many potential
donors are discouraged by the cost.
"Even for those people who are prepared to donate, it's a considerable inconvenience and it's a concern,"
he said.
"When someone steps forward and is considerate enough to be a donor, you really don't want them
worrying about financial issues at the same time."
B.C. project pays donors up to $5,500
Smitherman said the province is looking at a three-year live donor pilot project started in the summer of
2006 in British Columbia as a model for how to remove those types of barriers.
As part of its review, Ontario's organ transplant advisory panel studied the B.C. project, which reimburses
live donors up to $5,500 for accommodation, travel, meals, lost income and other costs of donating an
organ.
The advisory panel was made up of citizens appointed by the government to figure out how to increase
organ donations in the province.
Smitherman said he would soon release the panel's report.
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/ottawa/story/2007/04/10/transplant-070410.html?ref=rss
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