Organ harvest sows debate - Heart Health - C-Health

Organ harvest sows debate - Heart Health - C-Health

Organ harvest sows debate
Provided by: Sun Media
Written by: BROOKES MERRITT
Jan. 15, 2008

Lack of donors spurs argument of implementing a national opt-out program
The man who was the world's oldest heart transplant recipient says harvesting organs without consent would save thousands of Canadian lives each year.

"A program where everyone, except those who specifically opt out of donating, is fair game for organ harvesting is for the greater good. Canada should do this," Ray Nelson told Sun Media yesterday.

The 87-year-old from Lloyd-minster holds the world record as the oldest heart transplant recipient following a risky surgery performed at the University of Alberta hospital eight years ago.


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He said doctors at the time debated over whether to give a donated heart - a rare commodity in the transplant world - to a 79-year-old man, but eventually did, using a 53-year-old organ.

During his annual transplant check-up last week Nelson said doctors told him his body was faring as though he'd never needed a transplant in the first place.

"It's like it was always my own healthy heart. My kidneys, which dictate how well the heart does, are in the same shape if not better than they were in 1999."

He said a program enabling the removal of more organs from dead people without their consent should be a no-brainer for Canada.

Such programs in Spain and Sweden already operate that way; in Canada and Britain, people must sign cards consenting to having their organs harvested.

Because relatively few people do so in Canada, a gap is growing between the number of organs available for transplant each year and the number of people awaiting them.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown recently created a firestorm of online controversy by endorsing an opt-out program in England.

"The arguments against it are pretty weak when you look at the numbers," Nelson said. "Transplants open the door to a fuller life. People are given a second chance. The things I've been able to accomplish in these past eight years are unbelievable. Each day is a gift."

In addition to opt-out programs, transplant officials are also casting their eyes on the University of Minnesota, where scientists recently grew a beating rat heart in a petri dish.

Scientists scrubbed out the cells of a dead rat's heart, leaving only a husk of the organ, before injecting new heart cells inside it.

Within days the cells multiplied, fleshing out the heart which began beating on its own.

The technique could soon use stem cells to grow whole new organs, redefining the way transplants are done in the future.

"What that means, we hope, is that one day if you need a new organ we'll be able to take your cells, transplant them into this framework or scaffold and build you an organ that works for you," said Doris Taylor, director of the Center for Cardiovascular Repair at the University of Minnesota.

A spokesman for the Canadian Transplant Association could not be reached for comment.

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Statistics from capital health's human organ procurement exchange

By the end of 2007:

- 253 transplants performed at University of Alberta hospital (47 to patients from out of province)

- 29 donors (excluding tissue donations), few were Albertans

- 187 people remaining on the waiting list for organ transplant

By the end of 2006:

- 245 organs transplanted

- 48 donors, again few were from Alberta