Organ donation services
Deputy Lowry highlighted falling organ donation and transplant activity during the pandemic and sought action. The Taoiseach agreed it was important and said additional funding and staff had been provided since 2020.
This is organ donation awareness week and the life-saving need for organ donation cannot be stressed strongly enough. Organ donation and transplants were significantly reduced worldwide due to the pandemic and Ireland recorded one the most significant fall-offs in donors. Part of the reason is that the clinical staff were redeployed to help with the influx of Covid patients. Lung transplantation was the worst impacted, followed by heart and liver transplants. Kidney transplants from both living and deceased donors also fell. Lives that could have been saved were lost.
The Minister for Health has spoken in this House about switching consent for organ donation from the current opt-in system to an opt-out system. This means that people would have to indicate they do not wish to become donors following their deaths. Otherwise, if suitable, their organs could be harvested. The key factor in implementing such a system would be having trained organ donation staff in every intensive care unit, ICU. In addition, the organ donation card is outdated and needs to be reviewed and revamped.
Comment on this
I thank the Deputy for raising this very important issue. He is correct in saying that we experienced a higher decline in transplant rates compared with many European countries, due in part to the reallocation of staff and resources from the donation and transplantation system to intensive care units to aid the Covid-19 response. An additional €2.25 million has now been provided for organ donation and transplant services since 2020. That includes funding for a total of 30 whole-time equivalent staff and included in that are seven organ donation nurse managers, five advanced nurse practitioners, five theatre nurses, associate registrars, two senior house officers, two consultants and a specialist perfusionist.
The programme for Government includes legislating for an opt-out system of organ donation.
This legislation is a priority for Government and work on the drafting of the Bill is progressing in collaboration with the Office of the Attorney General and Office of the Parliamentary Counsel with a view to publication as soon as possible. The aim of that Bill is to make organ donation the norm in Ireland and that in situations where the opportunity arises, consent will be deemed unless the person has, while alive, registered a wish not to become an organ donor.