What is happening from today?
The Human Tissue Act 2024 introduces a presumption that your organs will be available for donation after you die.
Previously, people had to actively opt in to the process. Now, the presumption has shifted, and adults – other than those in an excluded group – will be considered to have agreed to donate unless they actively opt out.
If someone does not want to donate, they should note this via the national organ donation opt-out register.
Even if a deceased person is not on the opt-out register, their next of kin will still be contacted to seek consent. The HSE says people who have registered to opt out “will have their wishes respected”, and their family will not be approached on the issue after death.
Excluded from this change are children under the age of 18, people who do not normally live in Ireland or who have lived in Ireland for less than a year and people who may not have had the capacity to decide to opt out of organ donation.
What is the process of organ donation?
If you do not opt out, you will be presumed to have opted in to the process. In that case your next of kin will be contacted for permission to use one of your organs for transplant.
It is not possible to opt out of donation of individual relevant organs. You cannot, for instance, say you are happy to posthumously donate your kidney and not your lungs.
The deemed organs covered by the Act are the heart, lungs, liver, pancreas and kidneys.
The Act provides for non-directed altruistic donation by adults only, with additional protections and safeguards for donors. This covers the donation of an organ to somebody who is not known to the donor.
The legislation forbids pressurising a living donor. It prohibits any payment or reward for donating organs, tissues or cells.
The Act also provides a framework for donation while alive and will, for the first time, provide a way for people to donate a kidney to someone they do not personally know if they wish to.
Why is this legislation being brought in?
Similar legislation is already in place in the UK and in many other EU countries. Ireland was an outlier in not having such a law.
At any given time, there are hundreds of people in Ireland who are on waiting lists for organ transplants, according to the HSE. Dr Brian O’Brien, national director of the HSE’s Organ Donation Transplant Ireland, said not everyone who dies is a potential organ donor. A donor needs to be in hospital and on a life-support machine.
All organs donated go to people most in need of a transplant.
“Consent is at the heart of this change,” he says. “When someone dies, their family must agree to donate their organs. It is important to inform your family and friends about your decision regarding organ donation, as they will always be consulted and your wishes should be central to any decision.”
What difference will it make to those in need of an organ donation?
There were 263 organ transplants last year from 84 deceased and 30 living organ donors. At any time, there are between 500 and 600 people on the transplant waiting lists. It is hoped that waiting lists will come down as a result of this initiative and lives will be saved.
HSE chief clinical officer Dr Colm Henry said: “The opt-out organ donation system will bring us in line with international best practice. Organ transplantation is one of the great advances in modern medicine.”
