Mr. Speaker, I rise today to inform the House of the fantastic work being conducted at the Thunder Bay Regional Hospital's McKellar site.
A Thunder Bay medical specialist, Dr. William McCready, indicated that McKellar is the top hospital in Canada for organ donation. In 1996 nine multi-organ donors were brought to McKellar. Transplant teams have retrieved healthy hearts, kidneys, livers and lungs for use in patients throughout Canada whose diseased organs put them in a life or death situation.
The transplant process is facilitated when Canadians sign a donor card and when their relatives or next of kin have given permission for organs to be removed for transplanting. I urge all Canadians to complete donor cards. This humanitarian act has the potential to give the precious gift of life to someone in need.