Madam Speaker, I want to compliment the member for Port Moody—Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam for bringing this bill to the House. As he mentioned, it is a very important issue and one of the silent tragedies that has been occurring in our country for quite a long time. This problem existed at the time I was training to be a physician in the 1980s.
For a very long time we have had constructive solutions to deal with the issue of organ donation. Yet, while there has been widespread agreement on solutions, there has been a lack of action. We have seen the cycle go round and round. Solutions are proffered, agreements are made and yet we fall back to square one with nothing being done. No one takes the good ideas and puts them into action. That is why I welcome the member's bill. I hope it will be the catalyst that will finally push the minister and the government to act on the plethora of good solutions they have in their laps today.
As a nation we have one of the worst organ donor rates in the entire developed world. In fact, it is only about 12.1 per million. To put that into context, in the best circumstances there are about 36 per million in parts of the U.S. and Spain.
I would attribute our inaction on this issue to downright neglect. It is not an academic exercise. Of the more than 3,000 people who today sit on waiting lists, 150 or more of them will die needlessly. If there were a bus accident, a train crash or a plane crash and 150 people died, a national inquiry or a royal commission would be held immediately. In no short order solutions would be put forth and implemented. But because this issue is like a slow bleed which kills people over time it tends to be swept under the carpet.
For those people who are waiting for organs, for their families and loved ones who are watching them suffer, it is a painful existence. It is all the more painful because something could be done about it.
Something has been done about it.
As the member knows, in 1997 a motion was passed in the House of Commons detailing five points that would enable us to revamp the organ donor system in the country. It was supported by all members of the House and passed unanimously. It gave the minister a succinct plan of action which he could have implemented in 1997 and it would have had widespread acceptance.
Prior to that time the federal government and the provinces got together and agreed on a 13 point plan to revamp the organ donor system in our country. All provinces, including the province of Quebec, agreed to the national plan. The provinces were working with the federal government to do something for the public good. We were working as one.
Those solutions were again put on the back burner. In 1997, when I inquired about what was happening to these good solutions, I found that people were just sitting on their hands and nothing was happening while Canadians suffered and died.
Again I worked with the Minister of Health and, to his credit, he showed a great deal of interest in the issue. Through motions and procedures in the Standing Committee on Health, I and the Minister of Health asked the committee to study it. The committee worked together beautifully and heard fantastic testimony from people around the country and around the world.
Within the context of the testimony was a series of solutions and ideas that would give Canada the best organ donor system in the entire world in my view. In spite of the fact that we worked very well together, the final majority report, which had government stamped right on it, was a piece of pabulum. It was a piece of bureaucrat-speak. It did not do justice to the solutions that were put forth at that committee for this year, nor did it do justice to the well-meaning people who came before the committee.
Unfortunately, all of us in the opposition put forth minority reports, not because we wanted to but because the government majority report was so lacking in direction, in specifics and in a plan of action that all of us felt compelled to put forth a plan of action.
The following is a plan of action that incorporates what the good member for Port Moody—Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam has put forth. It involves the following points.
First, we should have a national organ donor registry that involves both potential organs and potential donors, which in and of itself will not solve the problems. We need something else. We need a chance to be organ donors.
Second, on every patient's chart across the country, we should have a form asking people to be organ donors. When people go to their family doctor, the doctor will ask whether they want to be organ donors. If they agree to be donors, the doctor will give them a form and they can ask questions.
The form must have two things: first, a request to be a donor, and second, but equally important, a question asking if they have communicated their wishes to a loved one. The reason for this is very important. If people do not communicate their wishes to their loved ones about whether or not they want to be a donor, then their wishes will be respected only half the time.
In the event of the untimely death of a person who chooses to be a donor, half the time the family will override the wishes of their loved one. However, if people tell their families what they want to do regardless of their feelings, 96% of the time they will honour their loved one's wish to give the gift of life.
Third, we need organ donor co-ordinators in every hospital in the country. It can be an existing staff person with extra training who can seek permission for organ extraction from family members in times of bereavement.
Fourth, when a hospital is involved in procuring organs from a person who has died, it should receive money for the costs incurred in extracting the organs from that person. It is costly because it involves time in the intensive care unit and it involves personnel.
If those four points are followed, we will have the best organ donor system in the country. I plead with the Minister of Health not to wait any longer. It took the Minister of Health months to respond to the health care committee, and during the course of that month, in October, roughly 66 people died in the country while waiting for the minister to respond. That is not necessary.
On cold, hard, economic grounds, if we remove the obvious humanitarian reasons for pursuing this course, the cost savings to the health care system are quite extensive. For example, it costs $50,000 to $60,000 per year for somebody to be on dialysis. It costs about that much to have a kidney transplant. Over the course of five years, the health care system would save $200,000 on every patient it dialyzed.
We must look into the future, into the crystal ball as we all get older. As the incidence of diabetes increases in certain populations and in the population as a whole, the demands on dialysis systems will increase dramatically. We must act now in a proactive way to give these people on dialysis the kidneys they need in order to prevent further tragedies.
It is not that we are going to somehow procure kidneys from people who are not dead. The people we get organs from are dead. For every organ donor who dies, five lives are saved. I compliment the families of the people who, through their untimely deaths, have made the ultimate sacrifice. Through their extraordinary generosity, they have given of themselves to give other people a new lease on life.
I make a plea to the public: If you want to be an organ donor, please sign your card and communicate your wishes to your loved ones.
I plead with the Minister of Health to support this bill, to support the motion I put forth which passed in this House, to support the work the committee did and to support the opposition members' solutions. Within that bundle of solutions are the best solutions to save Canadian lives. We need it and we need it now for the failure to act will only cost more people's lives.