Madam Chair, I am pleased to speak to this take note debate because it is an extremely important issue. I think about 4,700 people are currently on a waiting list for an organ donation. We know that some people die while waiting for an organ donation. This is again another preventable cause of death.
I know many people say that organ donations are in an experimental phase, that it does not really work, that if a person donates an organ it will not find it successful. Eighty to ninety per cent of organ transplantations are successful. This is an opportunity to actually save a life. it is important that we see it as that kind of preventive procedure where we can save a life, and that is really important.
I congratulate the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons for bringing this forward today as a debate. I think we know why and there is nothing wrong with this. The 35-year-old chief of staff to the Minister of Foreign Affairs suffers from renal insufficiency. People get renal insufficiency from chronic strep throat. There are lots of ways people can get renal problems. They are very common and often chronic infections can cause this to happen. He has been waiting for seven years for a kidney. It is interesting to note that over the time that he has been waiting, he has been receiving dialysis. The cost of dialysis is extremely high. The pain of dialysis and the problem of having to be attached to a machine for hours on end is an extremely difficult thing for a person to be doing for seven years.
Therefore, it is important to realize that this is not only something that can save a live, that can prevent a death, but it is also something that will help us to take our health care dollars and move them into areas where we can actually put more money in, instead of looking at cost effectiveness in the health care system. Getting someone an organ donation is a quick and easy thing to do.
I know that the gentleman in question, Mr. Keller, has launched a Facebook group called “Help Garry Find a Match”. I think he said, somewhat tongue in cheek, that he did not mind if that match were a Liberal, an NDP or a Green. While he is humourous and is trying to put a brave face on this, the reality is that there are 1,095 people in Ontario alone waiting for a kidney, that 195 Canadians died while waiting for a transplant, and that Canadians' organ donation for deceased donors is 15 per million. We can compare that with Spain with 35 per million, Estonia with 26 per million, Belgium with 22 per million, the United States with 21 per million and Italy with 20 per million. We are only 15 per million. Is it that Canadians do not want to donate their organs? When asked, 90% of Canadians said no, that they want to help,that they want to donate their organs. The question then is: Why not?
I suppose there are two things. One, there are a lot of myths associated around transplantation, and two, it is a very complex thing to do. If we are going to do something about this, we need to not only talk about it here today, not only feel really sad and sorry and say fine words, but we need to put in place the procedures, the processes and the infrastructure to ensure we can make organ donation a reality.
One of the things people do not know is that there are organs that can be donated by a living donor. In other words, people can donate one of their kidneys today. They can donate part of their liver today. They can donate part of a lung or part of their small bowel that will allow them to continue to live, work and have a great quality of life even though they have donated part of that organ or an organ. However, there are organs that can be donated after death, such as the heart, liver, kidneys, pancreas, lungs and the small bowel.
Some of the reasons that people have put forward is that we live longer in Canada, we have fewer motor vehicle accidents in Canada or we have fewer homicides in Canada. I do not necessarily think those are reasons when we look at Belgium and Spain. They have pretty safe and long living citizens. I think it is the system that is at fault here. The system is extremely complex.
Another reason that people do not want to donate their organs is not only because it is complex, but there are lots of myths around this. A lot of people think their religion prohibits them from donating an organ. Most religions actually support organ donation. A lot of people think that if they donate an organ, it increases the costs to the family toward the whole cost of the donation. It does not at all. Donations are covered under the Canada medicare plan. It is covered completely.
Other people think that because they have signed a donor card or because their driver's licence says they can donate, it automatically happens. It does not. In some countries it automatically happens, but in Canada we also have to get the family to accept. They have to agree to the organ donation.
There are lots of steps we can take in looking at the issue of organ donation. Some people think that if they have a disease or are chronically ill or they are over 70 or whatever, they cannot donate. That is not true. There are many parts of the body that are still very healthy. If someone's eyesight is bad, they can donate their sclera. There are lots of things people can do. Doctors will assess chronicity of disease and the health of the organ before they do the donations, so people should not worry about those things and just go ahead and do it.
One of the things that is really disconcerting is that in 2001, as my colleague said, there was a national transplantation organization set up, which has now been rolled into the blood donation group. Eighteen million dollars was given over five years to deal with this issue. The problem is that nothing has happened.
We do not need to reinvent this wheel. This is what we could do, and it is very clear. Doctors, the Canadian Medical Association and lots of people have talked about what we should do. One of the things we need is a national registry. We need to know across the country who needs an organ and their level of emergency. Second, in emergency rooms and ICUs we need to know who has passed away and who has a valid donor. We need to match each other up across the country. We need to standardize donation and the management of the whole organ donation process.
We need to look at a national oversight agency. Here is a piece of infrastructure that would keep this kind of standardization process going, keep a national registry and match the needs across the country. They do it in other countries. The United States has had a national registry and an allocation mechanism since 1984. It is called the United Network for Organ Sharing. It has a national wait list and mandatory organ sharing for prioritized patients. Across the country there is a helicopter or a plane waiting to fly an organ right away to somebody who really needs it. They do it in a fair and equitable manner. They look at the critical need, how far away it is and the likelihood of the patient being a good match. Those are some of the things we need to do if we are going to set up a system.
We need to look at sharing of best practices. Ontario, for instance, has the Ontario Trillium Gift of Life, which is exploring new ways of looking at automatically donating one's organ without the family's permission if one has an organ donation card or if it is on one's driver's licence.
These are important steps we can take to move the system forward and put the infrastructure in place. This is not rocket science. There are things we can do, and at the same time we need to remember that the sooner we do it, the better.
Let us not have this take note debate tonight in vain. Let us not just do the things we always do, which is talk, talk, talk. Let us hope that the government of this country will put in place right away the systems that are needed. It has the money. It has $18 million, but nothing has happened in the last five years.
Let us get things moving. Let us move forward. All the structures need to be in place and all the doctors know what needs to be done. Let us get a third party group with knowledge and information to get this going.