A pilot project has been launched at the Georges Dumont Hospital in the hopes of increasing organ donation.
Director for the New Brunswick Organ and Tissue Donation program Nadia Savoie says this initiative will be done with consent from family members, “We are already doing organ donations following neurological determination of death, but we will now be able to provide families the opportunity for organ donation following cardiovascular death.”
This hospital was chosen because of its Intensive Care Unit, but Savoie says the hope is to eventually roll this out to other hospitals in the province.
There are other Canadian provinces using this practice, and based on numbers, Savoie says, “It has increased their donor rate by 20 to 30 per cent, so that is what we are hoping we can have here in New Brunswick as well.”
Currently, Savoie says the have 150 patients on the list, waiting for an organ. 99 per cent of those are waiting for a kidney.
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