Multi-Organ Transplant Program

Organ need outstrips supply

By John Miner, Free Press Reporter

April 22, 2010

Copyright 2010, London Free Press

With the highest organ donation rate in Canada, it'll be a challenge to push the numbers higher in the London region, according to the co-director of the multi-organ transplant program at London Health Sciences Centre.

"We are doing great, there is no question. Could we do better? I think we could but it is not going to be so easy," said Dr. Anthony Jevnikar.
But it will be worth the effort, he said.

"The number of transplants across Canada are increasing but not nearly as much as the people on the waiting list. Some of them die on the waiting list. The only way we are going to solve it is increasing donor numbers."

The London area has an organ donation rate of 24 per million people. The Canadian average is 13 to 14 per million.

"The London region is equivalent to every top performing world in the country, including the United States and much of Europe, apart from Spain which has 30 to 33 per million. What it shows is London is outstanding," said Jevnikar.

"This is a community that already buys into the concept that when we die it is a good thing to recycle ourselves because it helps the next person."

Jevnikar credits the high organ donation rate of the London region to a number of factors, including the public awareness of the pioneering role played by London surgeons in organ transplants during the 1970s.

London health officials also developed materials, now used provincially, to include organ donation in the high school curriculum."We are teaching the province that it is good to talk about donation," said Jevnikar.

Other initiatives include a gift of life relay walk, curling bonspiel, night at the races, golf tournaments, transplant games and using transport trucks as moving billboards about transplantation.

A human billboard of the benefits of organ transplant is Kurt Penner of Dorchester. Suffering from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, Penner at age 52 was barely able to walk from his bed to his closet. He was told he needed a double lung transplant. The operation was performed in June 2002 in Toronto.

"Since then I have been getting better virtually every day over the past eight years," said Penner.

The operation allowed him to see both of his children get their education degrees and to look after his parents."I ride my bike, I curl five times a week in the winter. Basically, I am back to a normal life," Penner said.

He urges people to sign their organ donation cards.

"It is a great gift of life," he said.

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