Australian transplant rates plummet despite 5.5 million organ donors

Mar 21 2008

Leading medical experts in Australia have voiced their concern about the falling rates of transplants.

The latest government information says only 198 people donated their organs last year compared to 202 in 2006 and almost 1,800 Australians are currently on waiting lists for a transplant.

This is despite there being 5.5 million organ donors registered in Australia.

Leading transplant surgeon Professor Alan Glanville, from St Vincent's Hospital in Sydney, says hospital organ transplant coordinators should be recruited to identify patients who could become donors.

Professor Glanville says this is necessary to ensure Australians do not needlessly die on waiting lists; he says the government has within its power the ability to set up such a structure.

His comments come a week prior to the group 'Australians Donate' set up 1998 to increase awareness of organ donation, being axed by the federal government.

All this amid fears that the organ donation rate could plummet even further.

Australians Donate say a national body, supported by sufficient funding and supported within the hospital system could bring about the needed change.

The move follows a government report in January which blamed Australia's low donation rate on a complex system involving too many organisations and a lack of co-ordination and it accused Australians Donate of being "ineffective".

Professor Glanville says the issue is how to turn the number of registered donors into transplants.

The donation of organs and tissue is only possible after brain death when the organs have been kept viable which accounts for just 1 per cent of deaths; in almost half of such cases families refuse to consent.

At present Australia's organ donation rate is between 30 and 33 people in every million, less than half the rate of countries who have organ coordinators established in hospitals.

Federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon says Australians Donate will be replaced by a new committee in April.

Australians Donate has increased the donor registrations by 25 per cent in it's last year.