Action needed to boost organ donations & transplantations to prevent even more people dying as Ireland trails EU states
NEW stats this week show there has been a marked decline in organ donation and transplant rates in Ireland between 2019 and 2020.
The Irish Donor Network (IDN) has expressed its concern with organ transplants down by 32 per cent, while organ donation rates are down by 27 per cent.
We have slipped from 14th to 18th place in 2020 in the EU’s transplant table.
The IDN includes groups like Cystic Fibrosis Ireland; the Irish Lung Fibrosis Association and the Irish Heart and Lung Transplant Association.
Philip Watt, Chairman of the IDN, says Ireland needs an ambitious plan for organ donation and transplantation.
CONCERNING DECLINE IN FIGURES
PATIENT groups involved in the Irish Donor Network are deeply concerned about the marked decline in the rates of organ donation and transplantation in Ireland between 2019 and 2020.
When we review the latest 2020 figures, all transplants in Ireland declined by almost one third and organ donations declined by over a quarter.
Much of this is related to the COVID-19 pandemic. It is no surprise that the national heart and lung transplant programme in the Mater Hospital was disrupted most as transplant services were impacted because their resources were used to treat patients with COVID-19.
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Lung transplants were down 58 per cent in 2020 compared with 2019, and heart transplants were down 42 per cent.
Kidneys are the most transplanted organ in Ireland and worldwide. In a good year, around 200 kidney transplants are performed here. In 2020 this declined to 123.
Kidney transplants are recognised as by far the best way to treat end-stage renal disease. The national kidney transplant programme was suspended for three months in 2020 due to COVID-19 and, overall, there was a decline of almost 22 per cent in all kidney transplants compared with 2019.
EU COUNTRIES OUTPERFORMING IRELAND
The number of people on waiting lists for a heart, lung, kidney, liver or pancreas transplant will have increased as a consequence of Covid-19. It’s also clear that these lists do not give the full picture of all those who need a life-saving transplant as the number of transplant assessments has also decreased significantly during this period.
However, the pandemic should not mask the underlying challenges for organ donation and transplant services in Ireland. We are not doing well compared with the rest of the European Union and while most other countries’ donation and transplant activities were impacted by COVID-19, our services were more severely curtailed.
In 2020, we actually lost our previous ranking and dropped from 14th to 18th place in respect of organ transplants compared with EU28 countries – pre-Brexit – and were only in 17th place in respect of deceased organ donations.
We urgently need a plan to get Ireland into the top 10 performing EU countries. Spain is currently in number one position both in terms of organ donation and transplantation rates, and we can learn a lot from its success.
Around 30 people die each year waiting for a transplant in Ireland. If we don’t take action, we will see even more people dying and that would be unconscionable.
We also need to make sure that in the event of another upsurge in the Covid-19 pandemic that lung conditions do not bear the brunt of reduced services for conditions such as Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), cystic fibrosis and lung fibrosis.
ANOTHER CHALLENGING YEAR FOR DONATIONS
2021 is likely to be another challenging year for organ donation and transplantation here, but it’s never too late to take steps to minimise the impact.
We need additional resources to reboot our transplant and organ donation services, including an immediate organ donation and transplantation “revitalisation fund”.
Finally, the government needs to enact the long-promised Human Tissue Bill which will bring in soft opt-out organ donation to Ireland, which has proven so successful in other EU countries.
Soft opt-out is where people are presumed to wish to donate their organs in the event of their untimely death, unless they have opted out, or their family decline to proceed.
Organ donation is a true ‘gift of life’. Transplanted organs can give so many people hope for a longer and better quality of life.
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This hope would not be possible without the humanity and generosity of organ donors and their families and the work of all our excellent clinicians and their teams, especially during the worst period of the Covid-19 pandemic.
We now need to move on and revitalise these key health services.
