Most Albertans understand the importance of donating their organs and tissues to help save lives. What many don’t know, according to Give Life Alberta, is how to act on their good intentions.
A recently launched public awareness campaign called All the Ways encourages Albertans to share their donation decisions with their families and to register online.
One of the most common myths is that signing the donor card on the back of your Alberta Health card registers you as a donor — it doesn’t. Donor cards have been replaced by the online registry, and the most important step is to inform your family.
There are currently over 4,500 Canadians waiting for life-saving transplants, nearly 300 of whom are in Alberta. Many more are waiting for life-changing tissue transplants. People with organ failure need an organ transplant “for the sake of their long-term outcomes and survival, as well as for their quality of life,” says Andreas Kramer, medical director of Give Life Alberta.
Give Life Alberta asks Albertans to register their decision to donate and to discuss their wishes with their families. You can register online at the Alberta Organ and Tissue Donation Registry or at a registry office. From there, you can indicate whether you’d like to be an organ donor, tissue donor or both.
Kramer says it’s critical to discuss your wishes with family members, as consent is required from the next of kin to donate organs and/or tissues. It also makes the decision to donate easier for families during an intense time of grief. If you aren’t registered to be an organ or tissue donor but your next of kin believes this is something you would have wanted, you can still donate.
That was the case for Beau Walter. When he was critically injured in a car accident in 2022, his mom, Carrah, consented to donating his organs and tissues. Because they’d already had the conversation, she knew it was something her son would have wanted. By donating his organs and tissues, Beau helped 40 people and dramatically changed their lives.
A single organ donor can save up to eight lives. Registrants can choose what is and isn’t donated from a list including the kidneys, liver, lungs, heart, pancreas and the small intestine. But not every registered donor will be able to offer this precious gift; for this reason, maximizing the pool of potential donors is key to saving lives.
“People don’t always appreciate just how rare the opportunities for organ donation are, and in turn, how precious they are,” Kramer says. People may assume their organs can automatically be donated at the end of their life, but how they die affects whether their organs are viable for donation.
For a person’s organs to be considered for donation at the end of their life, they must already be on life support as a result of their injuries. Kramer says that many more people are likely to be considered for tissue donation. One tissue donor can help heal up to 75 people, with life-changing gifts such as eyes, heart valves, bones, tendons and skin, among others.
“It is very much an individual decision, and certainly whatever their views are will be respected,” he says.
Tissue donors can be as young as newborn or as old as 80. For organ donation, there is no age limit. All cases will be evaluated on an individual basis. The quality of the organ is more important than its age, and an illness may not impact all organs in your body.
Above all, Kramer adds that becoming an organ donor is a very personal decision. “People have the right to not have that done at the end of their life and that’s okay, too. But there very much is a need, and it is really important,” he says. “It’s a gift.”
Learn more or register today at givelifealberta.ca.
This content was supplied by the advertiser for commercial purposes. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Avenue staff.
