Relatives blamed for organ shortage

Diigo

Bereaved relatives are the chief cause of Britain's transplant organ shortage, researchers have said. The UK has one of the lowest deceased donor rates in Western Europe, at just over 12 per million of the population. Other European countries have donor rates of between 13 and 22 per million, with Spain boasting an exceptional 33 per million.

To investigate how many potential organ donors exist in the UK, researchers conducted a two year audit of all deaths in 341 intensive care units at 284 hospitals.

Over this period, families of 94% of patients who could have been donors were asked for permission to use their loved ones' organs.

A total of 41% refused to give consent, the team led by Chris Rudge from the NHS organ matching body UK Transplant reported in the British Medical Journal.

The main reasons given included relatives not wanting the body to be damaged by surgery, not being sure whether the patient would have agreed to donation, and disagreeing about the decision.

In the case of families from ethnic minorities, the refusal rate was 70%, twice that for relatives of white potential donors. The age and sex of the potential donor had no influence on whether or not consent was given.

The researchers wrote: "Intensive care units are extremely good in considering possible organ donation from suitable patients. The biggest obstacle to improving the organ donation rate is the high proportion of relatives who deny consent."

The maximum potential donor rate during the study period was 23.2 per million per year - still much lower than the actual rate achieved in Spain.

The researchers pointed out that when the Human Tissue Act comes into force in September, the wishes and consent of individual donors will be paramount. In time this may help address the problem, they said.

Diigo