It’s that time of the year again when the Ministry of Health starts pushing for everyone to put those small organ donor stickers on their health cards. It’s a great idea and one that a lot more people seem to be leaning towards nowadays. Here’s the problem I have with it though: those stickers are almost completely useless.
When a person dies, he or she can have that sticker on their card, can have a piece of paper in their wallet that says they want to donate their organs, and yet it won’t matter. That person’s family will still have to go through the entire rigmarole of paperwork involved just giving permission. Not to mention the fact that if the family decided they didn’t want to donate that person’s blood and organs, they can choose not to, contrary to what you obviously wanted when you put that sticker on your card. So then what’s the point of the sticker?
According to the Ministry of Health, the sticker is just a means of opening up that conversation between family members. That’s all it does. This whole big push the ministry is doing for everyone to put that sticker on their card is really just so that people can start talking about it.
If you ask me, that’s a waste of time. Let’s be honest; when people get that sticker in the mail, one of two things usually happens: either they look at it, think being a donor would be nice and charitable, and put it on their card. Or, they glance at it, take no notice, and toss it in with the rest of the recycling. More often than not, it gets forgotten rather than talked about over family dinner. I’m not just guessing, either.
According to legal reports from 2009, the average rate of deceased organ donation is about 13 donors per million people. Among live donors, that number goes up to 15 donors per million people. Canada is definitely lacking when it comes to this area, all because people are blasé about the topic. Nobody wants to talk about death, so people often think the sticker will talk for them. It won’t, and then the family is left wondering what to do.
Statistically speaking, an average of five people will die each week because they don’t have the organs they need. Non-statistically speaking, somebody’s child, somebody’s grandparent, somebody’s mother, brother, or sister will die waiting for a heart or a liver that will never come. They’ll die waiting while thousands upon thousands of healthy organs are left to rot.
And that’s expected. It’s typical that people get so wrapped up with what’s happening day-to-day that a faraway death isn’t something worth thinking about at the moment. So what’s the solution? I believe the answer lies not in trying to convince people – they’re already convinced, so that’s not the issue – but rather in reversing the option.
The ministry is ultra-sensitive to the rights of its citizens, so they want to give people the choice of opting in as donors. But what if they instead gave people the option of opting out? What if when every person signs up for a health card, they are automatically registered as donors? That way, if they don’t want to be donors for religious or personal reasons, they can choose to take themselves off the list. The choice and the right will still be in their hands, but at least this way it takes care of the people who forget to talk about it.
There is so much more vast potential to save lives with this option. The ministry hasn’t tried it because they’re too worried how people will react, thinking some might believe it is a violation of their rights. But their rights are still there and it will still be their responsibility to opt out if they’re against being organ donors. Upon death, the ministry would just have to confirm with the family if organ donation is still an acceptable option.
This way, no one will need the sticker to talk for him or her.
