Thank you.
Trillium Gift of Life Network is the Ontario agency which, under provincial legislation, is responsible and accountable for planning, promoting, coordinating, and supporting organ and tissue donation and transplant, and for participating in that process 24-7.
Since our inception, close to 17,000 Ontarians have received life-saving organ transplants. On behalf of Trillium's board of directors, its management, its staff, our partners in the health care community, donor families, and recipients in Ontario, thank you for the opportunity to participate today.
The strategy to increase organ donation very simply put is twofold: first, inspiring and encouraging the public to consent to donation at end of life; and second, organizing and structuring the local health system to ensure all donation opportunities are identified and appropriately followed through. Both elements are key to maximizing access to organ donation, and the federal government does play a role and can further play an important role.
Based on Trillium's experience, I will bring you today three recommendations for the role of the federal government in improving access to organ donation.
Recommendation one is to develop and implement a national, sustained, multimedia public education campaign. Improving access to organ donation must start with increasing the number of organ donors. One of the most proven ways of increasing organ donors is through public awareness, which leads to consent to donate. Families of potential donors who are registered overwhelmingly honour their loved one's wishes, but in absence of registration, that consent rate falls dramatically.
Following the tragedy in Humboldt, and the revelation that one of the victims of that tragedy had registered for donation and went on to save six lives, registration for donation skyrocketed right across the country. When Canadians are reminded of the altruistic nature and the life-saving benefit of donation, they respond. They take action. But they were jolted into it.
The Spanish model is one to look at. Spain boasts the highest organ donation rate in the world. Their authorities, their physicians, will say that this is not attributable to presumed consent—it is not. It is attributable to the structure they have on the ground, and most importantly, to the constant presence of organ and tissue donation in their media. Through this persistent presence in the media, a culture in which organ and tissue donation is seen as being an integral and expected part of end-of-life care has been established. We too can do that.
Recommendation two is to increase opportunities for organ and tissue donation registration using federal channels. Include and promote opportunities for donor registration through Service Canada and all of the high-volume public transactions at the federal level: obtaining and renewing passports, voter registration, filing of tax returns. These channels can drive web-based links to the donor registration mechanisms that are already in place in each province. There is no need to collect or transmit any personal patient information. It avoids duplication. It avoids the creation of any new infrastructure that already exists in the provinces.
Increasing the number of opportunities and portals for Canadians to register in their home province will help increase donor registration, improve consent rates, and build a donation culture in Canada.
Recommendation three is based on the proven fact that teams of qualified and uniquely trained resources, working in fine-tuned harmony on the ground at the local level, are mandatory if Canada is going to increase organ donation. No matter what else is done, without these trained, committed, accountable patient-facing professionals, there will be no increase in the number of donors. These professionals are intensivists and critical care nurses in the hospital ICUs. They include donation physicians and donation coordinators, all accountable to a single designated entity.
This on-the-ground team cannot be put in place and sustained from afar. This is a provincial responsibility. However, we recommend that at the federal level there be a prioritized, nationally supported initiative that promulgates Canada's existing assets, it's best-in-class education programs, practical information resources, and collateral, right across the country.
Every province will have to make its own decision on creating and sustaining these on-the-ground teams, but for those who are prepared to do so, collateral is ready. We have centres of excellence in Canada. We have them in British Columbia, in Quebec, and in Ontario. A national prioritized initiative will facilitate the sharing of Canada's turnkey leading practices. The pace of promulgation and ready-made assets will be faster than creating new materials, or customizing into one set of collateral for all.
It is Trillium's experience that time matters. Canadians are dying on the wait-list every day. The more provinces that have teams waking up each day focused on nothing but organ donation, the faster we can promote these ready-to-use assets and the faster we will save lives.
In summary, we recommend a federal role supporting development and implementation of a hard-hitting, multimedia public education campaign; increased opportunities for organ and tissue donation registration through federal transaction channels; and we recommend that we help the provinces activate their provincially supported teams by making it expeditious and doing so through a nationally supported program that promulgates Canada's existing leading practices.
Thank you.