NOTES
• To date, more than 455,000 Albertans have registered their intent to donate their organs and/or tissues after death, with 80% of those having been registered through Alberta registries.
• Just one donor can save up to eight lives and improve the lives for as many as 75 others.
• There is no cost to your family or estate if you donate organs or tissues.
• The surgery to remove organs and tissues is done with the same care as any other surgery.
• More than 1,600 Canadians are added to organ wait lists yearly.
Blood, organ and tissue donation
• Half of all Canadians are fit to donate blood, but only 1 in 60 Canadians gave blood last year. Our organ donation rates are also lower than many countries, including the United States.
• In Canada, 52 per cent of people say they or a family member have needed blood or blood products at some point in their lives.
• As our population ages, the need for organ and tissue donations will increase. In 2016, for example: more than 4,500 people were waiting for organ transplants, 2,835 organs were transplanted, and 260 people died waiting for a transplant.
• In the past 10 years, the number of deceased organ donors has gone up by 42 per cent. The number of people needing a transplant has also gone up in that time.
— Courtesy of Alberta Organ and Tissue Donation Registry (myhealth.alberta.ca/pages/otdrhome.aspx), the Canadian Transplant Society (www.cantransplant.ca), and the Government of Canada (www.canada.ca)
Spreading the good word about organ and tissue donation isn’t just restricted to events like National Organ and Tissue Donation Awareness Week, which runs tomorrow through April 29.
It’s a big deal to the registry agents at Drayden Insurance. A few years ago, the provincial government changed the system for registering to become a donor from merely checking a box on the back of your Alberta Health Care card to a comprehensive database. It was the sort of thing that people could do when they renewed their driver’s license.
Rather than wait for people to bring it up first, Drayden decided to step up the idea and it has had huge results.
“When the government started this out, the idea behind it was we are required by our contract with the government of Alberta to ask anybody who’s coming in,” said Marie Anstey, registries operations manager with the company that has four locations.
“At Drayden, we said, ‘Why would we limit it to just that? Everybody should know about this. Everybody should be doing this.’ So we went ahead and we made it our policy that we would ask everybody who came into our office. We would ask them if they would like to be registered with the Alberta Tissue and Organ Donation Registry. That is where it started.”
Registry offices in Alberta generate an average of 40 registrations each month. Because of Drayden’s efforts, their numbers are significantly higher in the communities where they have offices, all the way up to 279 per month in St. Albert and 282 in Spruce Grove. Morinville brings in 86 while in Westlock, a town of barely 5,000, they get 90 new registrants each and every month.
To celebrate the start of the awareness week, Drayden is bringing in Arla Pirtle and the Three Cowboys to help spread the word. They represent an organization called 2nd Chance Trail Ride, which started in 2012 with five men – including Pirtle’s father, Morris – who each received a double lung transplant. They wanted to promote organ and tissue donation as much as possible. People can stop by Drayden’s St. Albert office at 60 Green Grove Dr. between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. on Monday to say howdy and to learn more about why organ and tissue donations are so important.
After the horrible Humboldt Broncos bus crash, news was released that defenceman Logan Boulet had registered as an organ donor on his 21st birthday, only a few weeks prior. His heart, lungs, liver and kidneys were all donated to others. Since his selfless act, thousands of others have registered in a wave that some have called ‘the Logan effect.’
Anstey hopes that Monday’s event and Drayden’s ongoing persistence further draw attention to organ and tissue donations that turn sadness and tragedy into a life-saving gift from out of the blue.
“The more we talk about it, the more comfortable people get with it.”
People can register their intent to become organ and tissue donors through the Alberta Organ and Tissue Donation Registry website at myhealth.alberta.ca/Pages/default.aspx.
