GATEWAY Your community voice for the north! Thursday, December 8, 2016
Last Minu
te
HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE
Organ donations up in the north Samantha WRIGHT ALLEN Citizen staff sallen@pgcitizen.ca
N
orthern organ donations picked up in 2016, after six years of static numbers that sat at either zero or one. As of mid-November, the north reported six donors, putting the region’s rate in the realm of the rest of the province, which has seen a steady climb in donors in the last handful of years. “We’ve had quite a run of organ donation candidates recently,” said Dr. Marietjie Slabbert, a specialist in critical care and anesthesia and the new intensive care unit medical director at the University Hospital of Northern B.C. It meant about 23 organs went to those in need, she said. In some cases, one person can donate as many as eight to 10 organs. Last year, there were 95 deceased organ donors province-
Citizen photo by Brent Braaten
Dr. Marietjie Slabbert, physician lead for organ transplant in Prince George, stops for a photo at the University Hospital of Northern B.C. in Prince George on Nov. 21. wide, tripling B.C.’s 2009 numbers, but the north was far behind. Each of the last two years, there
has been only one organ donor from the north following four years of none, but Slabbert sees
that changing. “I think in the past there was almost a perception, I would
imagine, this can’t be done,” said Slabbert, who in August replaced Dr. Fareen Din as B.C. Transplant’s “physician champion” for organ donation in Prince George. “We’ve now shown it is very feasible, it works really well. We’ve not had any issues. There is a lot of logistics around it… but I think we’ve proven this year that it is doable.” B.C. is on track to match last year’s record 95 donations, with 89 as of Nov. 23. Vancouver Coastal Health Authority increased by one donor to 29, Fraser Health has already matched last year’s 24 donors, and both the interior and island are a few behind 2015 totals. When the hospital has an organ donor, it contacts BC Transplant, which flies in a surgeon team to retreive the organs. The organs then get packaged and flown to the patients in need. “Patients get looked after really well. There’s a lot of dignity in it,” said Slabbert. — see ‘I THINK, page 3