Hospital system should be prioritized over presumed consent, Kidney Foundation says

Improving the hospital system in Saskatchewan should be prioritized over presumed consent, says Joyce Van Deurzen.

She is the executive director of the Saskatchewan and southern Alberta branch of the Kidney Foundation of Canada.

While she is glad the provincial government is looking into all of the recommendations put forward by the standing committee on human services, she said presumed consent usually isn’t the first step taken in areas where it exists. 

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“With presumed consent we think there are a lot of very good recommendations in the report and we think improving hospital systems really needs to be prioritized and could make the most difference — has been shown to make the most difference — where presumed consent, not necessarily so,” Van Deurzen said. 

She said that looking at other countries which have transformed organ donation rates, improved hospital systems, living donations, removing barriers, public accountability and having the proper resources in place have been shown to have an impact. 

Saskatchewan could make strides in improving organ donation rates by having physicians specifically designated for organ donations.

These physicians could help people bridge the gap between intensive care and the transplant program, as well as provide education to medical staff and the public, she said. 

Promoting living organ donation is a “tremendous opportunity” in the province, she added.

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“People are willing to donate kidneys to strangers.” 

“There’s not a lot of data supporting presumed consent,” she said. 

Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Hungary and Slovenia are just some countries which have presumed consent. Van Deurzen said presumed consent was likely not the starting point for those places. 

“When you really look at those countries where they’ve made these changes that [presumed consent] was not the starting point, the starting point was putting in place those very things that were part of the report: mandatory referral, all the systems that need to be in place, donation coordinators in hospitals, doctors that are solely focused on that,” she said. “All of those things are really important.” 

Van Deurzen said the jury is still out on presumed consent. She thinks the best route to take is the tried-and-true.

“Let’s focus on what the evidence tells us works, has been proven to work. Let’s start there,” Van Deurzen said. 

“Let’s focus on evidence-based best practices about hospital systems.”

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