Jessica Campbell
Barriers preventing more people from becoming organ donations are of increasing concern to organzations like the BC Branch of the Kidney Foundation. And that organization is taking steps to identify and deal with these barriers.
The Foundation wants to know if you are an organ donor. If not, you can be, or maybe you think you are a donor and it turns out you're not registered as one at all.
"The gap between those saying they are registered and the official record is because B.C.'s organ donor registration process is misunderstood," said Karen Philp, Executive Director of the BC Branch of the Kidney Foundation."
A recent Ipsos online survey, conducted in the last week of March, sought to find out how many B.C. residents were registered as organ donars. Fifty-one per cent of those surveyed answered yes. Yet only 19 per cent are actually registered on B.C.'s organ donor registry.
Representatives of the Kidney Foundation will be coming to Cranbrook in the fall, as part of a 10-community tour across the province. They will be asking British Columbians what they feel the barriers of getting a kidney transplant are.
"I think it's important for people to know that up to 50 people a year are dying while waiting for a transplant, and that's only in B.C.," Philps said. "It takes a lot of British Columbians to register to be an organ donor in order to help someone have a successful transplant — because not everyone can be a match."
The Kidney Foundation of Canada encourages anyone who thinks they registered through their driver's licence,to check with the BC Online Organ Donor Registry, which can be accessed at www.kidney.bc.ca. To make donations to the Kidney Foundation go www.kidney.bc.ca or call 1-800-567-8112.