As readers will have noticed, it’s been a quiet few weeks for both Di and myself. That’s not to say things haven’t been happening: Di has been tending to her health, particularly stabilizing vital haemoglobin levels prior to removal of her remaining kidney next week, and I have been doing some crisis management on the work front.
The Living Donation Adventure is still in the forefront of our minds, however, but we have a long wait to endure before any clarity will be obtained. So, how to fill that gap?
For me, by continuing to educate myself in things “organ donation”, which in reality has started to involve a crash course in statistics and probability (seriously, here it is!), in human immunology and organ rejection, and in the world’s legal systems. Oh, and some biking and walking in the (now) beautiful Vancouver summer weather. Di, of course, is painting and creating another type of beauty:
In that vein, I want to share some interesting information. At least, I found it interesting! And thought provoking. (Read more here if you can cope with statistical language.)
Did you know that
- There are 2 types of organ donation: from the deceased and from the living? (Okay, that was just an ice-breaker to ease you into this.)
- There are 2 types of deceased organ donation models: opt-out and opt-in?
- Each country determines its own model, and the prevailing legal system (but not religion) in the country is a determining factor.
- Opt-out systems can be “soft” – still requiring final personal or family consent, or “hard” – no consent required if no option out has been lodged.
- Do you know what model your country works on?
- Both models result in the same number of total transplant procedures, but the proportions differ?
- The proportion of deceased donations to living donations is higher in opt-out systems than opt-in (which sort of makes sense).
- Opt-in countries have almost twice the number of living donations than opt-out nations, and this trend makes up for what would otherwise be a shortfall in total donations in those nations.
- Total kidney and liver transplants – viable for both living and deceased donors, occur more frequently in opt-out systems, with about 25% more procedures occurring than in opt-in model countries.
- I’m still figuring out what this means, since you would think the levels of living donors in opt-in countries would moderate this, but I suspect it is a function of being able to harvest multiple organs from deceased donors and not from living donors. And in the case of kidneys and livers, there may be multiple recipients too.
- The number of transplants is increasing over time, in both donation model systems.
- Transplantation rates increase when national coordinating programs with their associated sophisticated technological systems are in place and effective; when there is a high proportion of intensive care beds in hospitals (with the corresponding implication of competent health systems and skilled teams to support the beds); and when the laws of the land don’t discourage or complicate any type of donation.
What does this all mean?
I think it is fundamentally good news about human nature. Increasing rates of transplantation procedures means more believers and more signatures, or tacit agreement with that possibility (in other words, less opting out). The fact that living donors step up in systems where donation is a personal choice speaks to an underlying human drive to altruism. And for those countries with lots of work to do to really serve their needy, there are viable systems to adopt.
Share this blog far and wide to tap into that sense of altruism, so that little by little this gap – between need and delivery, diminishes and vanishes everywhere. It is possible!
Diary of a Living Donation 