New UK Transplant Decision

Family of deceased organ donors in the UK will now be permitted to suggest that an organ from their deceased relative should be offered to someone in their family who would benefit from a transplanted organ. This follows a recent decision by the UK Transplant Authority to allow Directed Deceased Organ Donation in a number of specific circumstances.

Speaking during Organ Donor Awareness Week, Mr. Mark Murphy, Chief Executive of the IKA, said, “I would welcome such a move in Ireland. The situation where a donating family has a relative on a transplant pool, awaiting an organ transplant in Ireland, would be a rarity. However, it is an important principle which I am convinced would encourage more people to carry an Organ Donor Card or join a future Organ Donor Registry.”

He said, “the key to the UK change is the existence of their Independent Transplant Authority to oversee such decision making”.

Mr. Murphy said he believed it unlikely that legislation creating an Irish Transplantation Law and Authority would ever be a high enough priority for the Government to present to the houses of the Oireachtas in the short to medium term – certainly not in the full term, life expectancy of the present Dail.

Mr. Murphy asserted that, “if Ireland had similar legislation to the UK, the national evolution of Directing of Deceased Organ Donation could extended to the whole of the UK and Ireland. Irish people in the UK could direct Organ Donation to their relatives in Ireland and vice versa.”

The clear understanding of the UK decision is that the family would first of all consent to organ donation from their relative unconditionally and the decision about their relative receiving a specific organ would be taken independently of all the other useful organs being allocated in the normal way.