Number of organ donors plummets

Jan 29 2010 by Helen Rae, The Journal

IN the last three years the number of organs available to seriously ill patients has noticeably fallen, with surgeons in the North East turning to live donors to meet demand.

Recent statistics have shown that only 25% of people in the region have joined the Organ Donor Register – one of the lowest rates in the country.

There are currently 267 people waiting for an organ transplant in the area, with 14 people dying last year while waiting for an organ.

In the region there are 668,704 people on the organ donation register.

And research shows that while 96% of people said they would accept a transplant if needed, only a quarter have volunteered to donate their organs after death.

As reported in yesterday’s Journal, surgeons on Tyneside announced they are set to perform a pioneering liver transplant from a live patient, meaning they will no longer have to wait until someone has died for an organ to be donated and a patient’s life saved.

The operation at Newcastle Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust will see part of the organ from a healthy adult removed and put into a recipient with liver failure where it will grow and regenerate within weeks to almost its normal size.

Derek Manas, professor of transplantation at Newcastle Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, said: “For a long time we have avoided live donation because we have been meeting the demand for organs.

“But within the last three years there has been a sharp reduction in the number of organ donors available and as a result we have had to look to the need of living donors.