Paid organ donor co-ordinators urged

Hospitals are losing potential organ donations because they do not have proper systems in place to identify donors and deal with their families, a conference on organ donation has heard.

Irish Kidney Association chief executive Mark Murphy called for funding to employ donor co-ordinators in every intensive care unit in the State. There is currently a voluntary arrangement in place, but Mr Murphy said the role needed to be clearly delineated, with appropriate training and support.

When 20 donor co-ordinators were put in UK hospitals on a pilot basis, there was a 14 per cent rise in donations in a year, he said.

Mr Murphy was speaking at an international conference in Dublin to mark the ninth European Day for Organ Donation and Transplantation.

Some 91 people donated their organs last year - the same as in 1990. Mr Murphy said that represented a fall because our population had risen by 500,000 in the meantime.

Dr David Hickey of the National Centre for Renal Transplantation at Beaumont Hospital highlighted figures which showed that hospitals such as St Vincent's and the Mater had just four donors each last year while Beaumont had 16 and Cork University logged 13. Beaumont Hospital deals with a high number of head injuries so it is always likely to have more potential organ donors.

Dr Hickey said Ireland came 12th out of 33 countries for organ transplants per head of population last year but was in the lower half of the league for heart transplants.

Presumed consent, where all patients are presumed to be donors unless they opt out, is a controversial issue but Dr Hickey highlighted the introduction of "required request" in some US states. Required request means hospitals are legally obliged to ask about organ donation if a patient is near death.