Many families still refusing organ donations

Many families still refusing organ donations
16:00 AEST Mon Sep 13 2010

By Erin Tennant, ninemsn

Hundreds of sick or dying Australians are denied a second chance at life because almost half the families of potential organ donors are refusing to donate their loved ones' organs.

The country's organ donor rates — which lag behind those of many other First World countries — have been hampered by stiff community resistance, ninemsn has found.

That's despite the federal government reaching the halfway point of its four-year, $150 million program to improve organ donation.

YOUR SAY: Should we introduce "presumed consent" for organ donation?

The number of organ donors is steadily climbing, however, because hospital staff are raising the question of organ donation with more grieving families than ever before.

And that rise is already placing hospitals under strain because they enjoy little extra support in managing an increasing number of transplant surgeries.

"The projections currently are that by the end of 2011, we will have 14 donors per million of population," Kidney Health chief executive Anne Wilson said.

"If you're an Australian waiting on a transplant waiting list, at that rate you're actually better off moving to another country."

In the first eight months of this year, organs from more than 200 Australians who died suddenly were passed on to 600 people on an organ transplant waiting list.

That represents a 23 percent jump in organ donor numbers compared to the same time period last year, according to figures from the Australian and New Zealand Organ Donation Registry.

Organ waiting game
Organ types    Kidney    Liver    Pancreas    Heart    Lung
Waiting list as at Aug 5, 2010    1250    188    31    69    142
Average waiting time to transplant    3.8 years    137 days    N/A    147 days    234 days
Organs transplanted in 2009    770    187    46    59    120

Sources: Australia & New Zealand Organ Donation Registry, National Organ Matching System, Cardiothoracic Organ Transplant Registry, Liver Transplant Registry.
The increase is partly due to the placement of 159 specially trained staff across 76 hospitals over the past two years, who ensure potential donor families are approached.

Advances in transplant medicine also mean doctors are able to retrieve organs from a larger pool of deceased donors than ever before.

A higher number of living kidney and liver donors is also a contributing factor.

But for the 1683 Australians waiting for new organs, and the thousands more who will join them, the future isn't all bright.

Families are refusing organ donation almost at the same rate they are allowing them.

In NSW hospitals so far this year, just 56 percent of 124 grieving families who were approached donated the organs of a relative to heal a stranger, statistics supplied to ninemsn show.

Current data is unavailable for other states, but transplantation doctors say the experience in NSW is consistent across Australia, which has recorded consent rates of around 58 percent in recent years.

In Spain, the consent rate is around 90 percent.

Misgivings among families from non-English-speaking backgrounds — including fears of bodily disfigurement, or the belief that doctors can revive a brain dead patient — remain major stumbling blocks, donation advocates and doctors say.

"Until we increase acceptance among multicultural communities, we're not going to see further significant improvements to organ donor numbers," Transplant Australia chief executive Chris Thomas said.

Ms Wilson from Kidney Health said organ transplant authorities should talk to the leaders of multicultural groups "so that they can then talk to their people, because that's how countries that have proven leading performance have achieved cultural change in their communities."

A spokeswoman from the Organ and Tissue Authority, established in January last year, said it recently undertook research to "identify [and overcome] communication barriers" to discussing organ donation within non-English-speaking communities.

Yet hospital operating theatres and organ transplant specialists are already stretched by the increase in organ donation.

Royal Prince Alfred Hospital's director of transplantation services, Richard Allen, said: "The funding that's gone in stops at the time that the donor is identified and leaves the intensive care unit for the operating theatre".

He said support is needed to train more transplant surgeons and donor coordinators and to better equip hospitals for removing and transplanting organs.

The Organ and Tissue Authority spokeswoman told ninemsn its focus is on improving donor rates, and that states and territories are responsible for funding transplantation services.

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/health/7960643/many-australian-families-refusing-organ-donation