MPs call for organ donor register

By REBECCA WALSH

A national organ donor register should be set up to replace the current inflexible driver licence system, Parliament's health committee says.

It wants public consultation on the issue as soon as possible but transplant experts question the need for it and say it could result in fewer organs being donated.

In February Health Minister Annette King rejected the committee's recommendation to set up an organ donor register linked to the driver licence database. She said registers overseas had ethical problems and there was little evidence they increased donor numbers.

She said the Government wanted the health committee to look into the effectiveness and cost of a register first.

Yesterday the health committee released its report after a briefing by the Ministry of Health.

It recommended the Government investigate the option of an "indicative register" that recorded organ donation wishes when a licence was issued or renewed.

It said that investigation should be independent of a review under way on the regulation of human tissue and tissue-based therapy. (Among the options being consulted on is presumed consent for organ donation, which would make all New Zealanders donors unless they officially opted out.)

"We consider that the current organ donor shortage in this country needs to be addressed immediately, independent of the policy and legislative process already under way," committee chairwoman Steve Chadwick said.

About 350 people are waiting for organ transplants, mostly kidneys.

Ms Chadwick said the committee wanted the Ministry of Health and the Land Transport Safety Authority to consider closer links between the two Government bodies. Ideally the committee wanted to see the system linked to the Primary Health Organisation system.

Ms Chadwick said there were no prompts for people to talk to their family or GP about organ donation when they were issued with a licence. An indicative register would encourage people to talk about their wishes.

"We would like some little flag when getting a licence, or renewing it, that you go and talk to your family or doctor about it. Then it's the family who will bring the issue up in intensive care, not the doctor having to raise the issue and look like they are trying to retrieve organs."

The committee recommended surveying public attitudes to organ donation options and the methods for recording their wishes. It also recommended that the Government review the resources provided to Organ Donation New Zealand to ensure funding was allocated to community and family education.

But Auckland City Hospital transplant surgeon Stephen Munn questioned the need to "enhance" the existing system when the driver licence system was seldom used. Doctors generally asked families whether their relative wanted to be a donor.

He believed an indicative register would be expensive and "frankly we wouldn't use it".

"I think the committee is fishing. They are hoping public opinion supports their view there ought to be a donor register."

Professor Munn said surgeons "almost certainly" retrieved organs from people who had not indicated on their licence whether they wanted to be a donor after families said yes.

"If we were driven by what was written on that indicative register then we wouldn't ask."

Professor Munn said the "transplant community" believed the best place for pumping resources was the organ donor office and in the education of nurses and doctors working in intensive care units.

He questioned the need to research public awareness and attitudes when public consultation on the Human Tissue Review Act was already under way.

Aucklander Andy Tookey, who organised a petition seeking changes to address the donor shortage in New Zealand, welcomed the recommendations. He was lobbying for a law change that would prevent families overturning the wishes of a donor.

A spokesman for Annette King said the minister would take the report to Cabinet before commenting.