Nearly 100,000 people mark intent to donate organs on MCP cards

Two and a half years after the provincial government moved the option to pledge organ donation from driver's licences to medical care plan cards, nearly 100,000 Newfoundlanders and Labradorians have signed on.

Kim Parsons, nurse co-ordinator of the provincial organ procurement and exchange program, says the more people who sign up, the bigger the pool to help people in need.

300 people die every year

"Right now there's about 4,500 people in Canada waiting for an organ transplant. We don't meet that need. There's almost 300 people die every year waiting for organ transplants nationally," Parsons told CBC's St. John's Morning Show.

"We can't meet the need the way things are right now. We need people to indicate their intent, have the conversation with their family, so if the rare opportunity for organ donation comes around, they know what their loved one wanted."

Not everybody is going to have the presence of mind at the time you're in the hospital.- Kim Parsons

Parsons said the switch was made to MCP cards for two main reasons: not every resident of the province has a driver's licence, and the province wants the organ donation information available at the point of care.

"When people come to the hospital, they don't often have all of their identification with them, but they'll often have an MCP card."

Since the option was added to MCP cards, said Parsons, 95,000 Newfoundlanders and Labradorians have indicated their intent to donate, but it's hard to know if that's an increase from the driver's licence-based system.

"Our numbers were not always accurate from the driver's licence registration, and the information didn't transfer over," she said.

Talk to your family

Even more important than ticking the organ donor box is talking to your family about your desire to be a donor, said Parsons.

"Share your wishes. Let them know what you want, because not everybody is going to have the presence of mind at the time you're in the hospital, you're in ICU, your loved one has passed away, and you're asked about organ donation," she said.

"If you've had the conversation before, your family's more likely to be able to answer the question with clear mind [and] know what your wishes were."

Across Canada, said Parsons, there has been an increase in organ donation, but rates in Newfoundland and Labrador have dropped off in recent years.

"We do have certain challenges here in Newfoundland. We're an island in the North Atlantic so it's harder to get transplant teams here," she said. And medical advancements means fewer people actually become brain-dead and become potential donors; less than five per cent of people who die qualify for donation.

With files from The St. John's Morning Show

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