Street Level

In Canada in 2006, five people died each week waiting for an organ transplant.

Another 471 that year were taken off waitlists because they were either too sick by then to receive a transplant, had chosen to be removed or had improved and no longer needed one.

The year before, the Ontario government created a panel to develop recommendations to increase the number of organ donations in the province.

At one time, that province even considered a law that would require all its drivers to make a choice on being an organ donor before renewing either their driver’s licence or health cards.

All this because our country has one of the lowest organ-donation rates in the industrialized world.

We have 14 donors per million people — do the math, that’s an abysmal figure.

In Spain, there are 31 donors for every million people.

And the reality is that there are thousands of Canadians waiting for transplants right now, some of them so sick that their chance of receiving one is unlikely.

And now, for reasons which defy logic, Health Canada has decided to apply truly heinous stereotypes and ban sexually active gay men from being potential donors.

The reason? It’s too risky.

And why is it too risky?

Well, that’s obvious, isn’t it? It must be because they’re gay.

And that, of course, makes them a much higher risk than, for argument’s sake, a single guy who likes to play the field.

Or a woman recovering from a breakup by rebounding again — and again and again.

It’s all about that nasty word — S E X — and we all know that gay men, well, they just can’t control themselves, can they?

But wait a minute.

Maybe that skirt-chasing Lothario might stop and wonder if he’s any different than a non-monogamous gay man? Does that make him high-risk, too?

Who’s to know?

All these Health Canada officials have done is muddy up water that doctors had been managing to keep clear by applying their own ways to discourage potential donors they knew to be unsuitable while accepting those they knew would be fine.

Dr. Gary Levy, the head of the country’s largest organ-transplant program, said earlier this week that he’s already heard from people who think they can’t donate based on the declarations from Health Canada.

“Leave it to the professionals to determine whether these organs can be used safely and if they’re good,” he said.

Levy went on to point out that “if someone has 62 partners, whether its heterosexual or homosexual, there still is a risk.”

At a time when the country is so far behind others in organ donors, and just as tardy in seeing its population even sign the forms needed designating themselves potential donors, why this federal agency would issue such a dumb statement, interfering in an area that has been doing the best it can with people in charge of it who can actually make these life-and-death decisions, is inexplicable.

Maybe then we wouldn’t see — as we do now in B.C. — these kinds of waits for transplants:

* kidney (deceased adult): 60.28 months, and there are currently 240 people in B.C. waiting for one;

* kidney (deceased pediatric): 3.89 months;

* pancreas-kidney: 37.64 months, six are waiting now;

* liver: 4.79 months, with 19 waiting;

* heart: 4.63 months, with 5 waiting;

* lung (single and double): 5.31 months, with 20 waiting;

* pancreas islet: 34 months, with 20 waiting.

And it would be great to see Health Canada — rather than provincial governments and agencies that support those who need transplants — come up with something proactive to encourage all of us to fill out those transplant permission forms.

And then, when our time comes, let the doctors decide if there’s anything left of us that has survived each of our own lifestyles and can be passed on to let someone else have a lifestyle of their own.

dale@kamloopsthisweek.com

Posted by Dale at 10:39 a.m. Comments