Organ Donation

February 9, 2010 by Linda
Filed under Articles

Every year in the UK, over 3,000 lives are saved or significantly improved by donated organs and tissue. These transplants can only happen because the donor has consented to organ donation for example by joining the Organ Donor Register or by discussing their decision to donate with relatives or close friends. Under current UK law, if you want to donate your organs after death you must make your wishes known.

There are a number of ways of ensuring your wishes are taken into consideration:

Discuss your decision with a family member. This is vitally important. The medical team will require their help in the donation process in the event of your death. Understanding your reasons for wanting to donate will help them to carry out your wishes at a very difficult time. The relatives of organ donors often talk of finding great strength from this process as it means that other lives are saved
Put your name on the NHS Organ Donor Register. This makes it easier for the NHS to establish your wishes as quickly as possible
Carry a donor card. The donor card was introduced in 1971 at a time when only kidneys could be donated. It’s still a valid method but if you’re not carrying one in the event of your death there’s a risk that your wishes won’t be carried out.

The NHS Organ Donor Register was introduced in 1994. It’s a confidential, computerised database that currently holds the names of nearly 16 million people who have decided to donate their tissue, organs or both. The register is used to check if, and what, a person wanted to donate.

Donor cards are still used but, because they can be lost or stolen, the NHS Organ Donor Register is the best way of ensuring your wishes are permanently recorded. The process of registration is very quick and easy. It allows you to specify precisely what you wish to donate. If at any point after registering you change your mind, you can log back in to amend your record. Click here to register today.

After death, you can donate the following organs:

Kidneys
Heart
Liver
Lungs
Pancreas
Small bowel

It’s also possible to donate tissue, such as corneas, skin, bone, tendons, cartilage and heart valves. A cornea transplant can restore someone’s sight, a bone transplant can prevent limb amputation in bone cancer patients and skin grafts can treat people for severe burns.

If you’ve been turned down to give blood you may still be eligible to donate and having an existing medical condition doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t be an organ donor. Healthcare professionals will make the decision based on your individual medical history.

There’s no minimum age to join the register and parents can register their children at the time of their birth.

Living donation

A shortage of organs has led to an increasing number of living donors. The most common organ donated by living donors is the kidney, since it’s possible to live a perfectly healthy life with just one functioning kidney. Transplants are more likely to be successful if the donor is alive and healthy.

Part of a liver can also be transplanted, as can a segment of a lung. There have been a very small number of cases of the small bowel (small intestine) being transplanted.

The Human Tissue Authority (HTA) carefully monitors living donor transplants. It regulates donations from living people of solid organs, bone marrow and stem cells. The Human Tissue Act 2004 requires the HTA to approve all transplants from living donors, whether they’re relatives or not. The HTA works closely with the Organ Donation Directorate of NHS Blood and Transplant to do this.

Source: The NHS

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