Six live better thanks to dead woman's gift

Elizabeth Neels

Mike Neels likes to think of his daughter Elizabeth's 18-year-old heart beating.

It saved the life of a 50-year-old man.

Mr Neels and his wife, Lori, have learned Elizabeth's last gifts, her organs for donation, have gone to six people so far.

Ms Neels suffered massive head injuries last June when a campervan driven by Lions supporter Michael Berry crossed the centre line near Karapiro and hit her car. She died in Waikato Hospital.

Elizabeth became the first person in the Waikato to donate her organs last year and one of 29 nationwide in 2005, highlighting a major shortage of donors.

A 6-month-old baby boy received part of her liver. A man in his 40s received the other half. A young man in his 20s now breathes with her lungs, and a girl in her teens has been saved from a life of dialysis with one of Elizabeth's kidneys. A man in his 40s received the second.

"It's sort of nice to know that her heart is still beating out there," said Mr Neels. He and Mrs Neels are also donors.

Organ donation was the first thing Elizabeth discussed and decided on when she got her driver's licence.

As Elizabeth's brain slowly died in the intensive care unit, the Neels, remembering her wish, asked doctors to retrieve her organs. It gave them a precious extra 12 hours with their only daughter, conceived after 12 years of trying for a child.

In 2004, 40 people donated their organs in New Zealand. Last year that figure dropped by 11, meaning seven people in every million donate their organs in New Zealand. In Spain, 34 in every million donate theirs.

Professor Graham Russ, of the donation registry based in Adelaide's Queen Elizabeth Hospital, which keeps the statistics, said it meant more people were waiting longer, some dying on the waiting list for organs.

In Australia, 204 people donated their organs last year, down from 218 in 2004.

Mr Neels said the rate could also be down in New Zealand because of controls around how organs can be donated.

"In New Zealand you must die in intensive care. If you die on the roadside, your organs cannot be used."

Patients are generally brain-dead, and although they may be listed as donors on their licences, their family must consent.

A 2002 audit found that of 104 patients who could have been organ donors, 38 were. Of the remaining patients, 31 families refused consent, and 35 families were not asked.

"We asked the doctors about organ donation. If we hadn't I don't think it would have been brought up," Mr Neels said.

The couple decided to forgo Christmas this year - it did not feel right to try to eat, drink and be merry six months after Elizabeth's death. In March it will be her birthday, then there will be the first anniversary of her accident.

"We have to drive past that place on State Highway 1 every time we go anywhere, pretty much."

March will also be marked by a donor service in which the families of donors and recipients can get together in Auckland. Although the process is anonymous, Mr Neels hopes whoever received his daughter's organs may put two and two together.

"It would be nice to know if they're doing well."