Health Committee on May 9th, 2018

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Dr. West, I want to get a very clear recommendation from you. How much money is needed from the federal government to keep this research program going?

[Dr. Lori West]

At the moment, the structure of the program is about $40 million. We have put in place a structure that's now going to be decreased to about $3 million. In order to keep this program going, we really need to recapitulate what we had when we built it, because we have much bolder visions now to really solve these problems.

We would guess that, to put a figure in place, it would be in the order of $60 million over five years to move it forward for another five years.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

I'm probably running out of time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

There's time for just one little one.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Dr. Kneteman, you mentioned creating a national database. If you could create the national database, what would it look like?

[Dr. Norman Kneteman]

We have many of the elements there. The Canadian Transplant Registry is actually in place, and it is a system to bring this information together. All of the different organ organizations—the kidney specialists, liver specialists, etc.—have already come together and decided which elements are the minimum datasets to be able to follow this effectively. The challenge is that we need to fund the activity—people—to basically get that information into the database from every transplant centre and every donation centre in the country. Right now there is no funding for that. We also need to make it mandatory, because otherwise it just won't show up.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Now, that completes our official round, but I can't help but think that Dr. Eyolfson might have a question. If he does have one, I would ask for unanimous consent to have him ask a question.

Do you have a question you want to ask? Is there anything burning?

[Doug Eyolfson, Liberal, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

No. Everyone has asked such great questions. I'd just like to say—

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Chair, I would just say that I know he's a marathon runner. I want first dibs on his lungs.

[Doug Eyolfson, Liberal, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

I have just a comment. I appreciate the change now to having a separate physician do this. I'm an emergency physician by training. I did this for 20 years. A number of years ago, we had to have this conversation, and we—the ones who were providing care—were the ones having this conversation with families. It was a very difficult thing to do. If you can imagine, you have a 22-year-old with a devastating gunshot wound to the head. You have shocked family members. You are giving them the worst news, and then you say, “Oh, by the way, can we have his organs?” It is a very difficult place to be in. A change from that is welcome. I also have experiences from the past when sometimes we would lose organ donors because there was just loss of coordination depending on what time of the night they came in and who was available. Time would pass and you would realize this just wasn't going to happen. It was a tragedy every single time. So, all I have to add is to thank you all for your—

Yes, Dr. West.

[Dr. Lori West]

We also need to consider and remember that this country, the geography, is huge and we can't focus only on the cities and the urban areas where deaths occur. Highway deaths in the remote areas need a special approach. It needs to take into account these.... Alberta is one good example. It can't just be Edmonton and Calgary. We have to look at Red Deer and Lloydminster. I think that's one of the places where creative thinking can add to how we approach these.

[Doug Eyolfson, Liberal, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

Absolutely. I flew for air ambulance for 13 years. It was a fixed-wing program, and we would do medevacs that were a two-hour, one-way flight by jet. We're talking about some very remote areas. You're right. Some of those cases were potential organ donors, and I think we need to make sure that it isn't.... As I say, you shouldn't have organ donors in just the big cities because they're already rare enough; you don't want to lose potential donors.

I thank you all for your efforts in this.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Thanks very much. I often say we have the best witnesses and panellists of any committee in Parliament. You certainly reinforced that argument today. You have given us a lot to work with and a lot to think about.

I want to thank Mr. Aboultaif for telling us his family's story, because there are 338 members of Parliament and we're just people. We experience the same things that everybody else does. People kind of forget that we're people sometimes, but we are, and to hear that was helpful.

I want to thank you all very much. We're going to put a lot of thought into this. We were going to give drafting instructions, but I think we should all think about this a lot and talk about this at another meeting later on, and try to make a difference, if we can, in our report.

Thanks very much, everybody, for your comments.

[Dr. Lori West]

I've already said we're happy to continue to be engaged, if that's helpful to the committee. We know these are tricky and complex issues.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

You said earlier—and I wrote it down—it is a complicated landscape. But it's about the simplest landscape we deal with, as far as a solution is concerned. You know, we talk about all kinds of things at this committee—opioid crisis, post-traumatic stress—and we just really don't know what to do. However, if we can raise public awareness and professional awareness and get a little money, you know, it will save lives. So it's actually the simplest landscape, I think.

Anyway, thanks very much.

Now, we're going to take a little break before we start all over again in the next meeting. We're going to take 15 minutes.

The meeting is adjourned.