You may be aware of recent advertisements in the newspapers concerning:
Public Consultation for the Consent for Donation of Organs for Transplantation. More Information here.
Your Association in conjunction with The Irish Donor Network have expressed a choice of maintaining the current informed consent practice together with
‘Required Request Mandatory Reporting’
Draft Response to Consultation Process:
The Committee and members of the Association agree that of the various consent options contained in the consultation document they wish to express their choice as:
“Maintaining the current informed consent practice with required request and mandatory reporting”
We understand that required request would mean a statutory obligation on appropriate personnel within the ICU’s to approach potential organ donor families requesting organ donation following the patients’ brain death.
We understand mandatory reporting to mean that full and complete records would be maintained in each hospital recording all engagements with potential donors’ families, the outcome, refusals, and the reasons for refusals.
Our Association first wrote to the then Minister Michael Martin in 2001 asking for the establishment of a Formal Transplant Authority to regulate all activities within the area of Donation, Procurement and Transplantation.
We now support the call of our colleagues in The Irish Donor Network who are promoting the establishment of a formal transplant oversight body which we all consider essential to achieve a successful organ transplant program in our country.
