Principles:
1. | A National Goal expressed in donors per million population (DPMP) annually should be established. (The current Canadian rate is 14 DPMP. The bench mark nation is Spain at 31 DPMP. |
2. |
A co-ordinated, comprehensive and integrated donation and transplantation strategy is required. |
3. | The strategy should be directed by a Council, appointed by the Federal, Provincial and Territorial Governments, that would maintain a regular reporting link to the Ministers of Health through Advisory Committee on Health Services. |
The Council should include representatives from government, clinical disciplines concerned with donation and transplantation, epidemiologists, ethicists, and the public.
The Council should:
The Council should have an ongoing Secretariat to support Health Ministries and service providers to create and maintain components of a strategy including:
The Secretariat should be funded by Health Canada.
4. | Provinces and Territories should designate critical care units whose mandate will include the responsibility for donation. Staff within these units will be provided with the necessary education and training to identify potential donors, diagnose brain death, maintain clinical support of the donor until organ recovery is possible, and provide bereavement support to the family. |
5. | Provinces and Territories should ensure that organ donation and co-ordination activities will be encompassed within critical care services at the community level. In addition, tissue donation should be formally linked to organ donation activities at the community level. |
6. | Provinces and Territories should participate in developing, and be responsible for reporting against, common standards for the listing of transplant candidates, organ allocation, sharing practices, and organ and tissue transplant outcomes.
Reporting requirements for all hospital services with respect to organ and tissue donation and transplant activities should be incorporated within the standards for accreditation established by the Canadian Council on Health Services Accreditation. |
7. | Provinces and Territories should ensure that inter-provincial billing agreements will cover costs for organ donation, tissue banking, and organ allocation and transplantation. |
8. | Federal, Provincial and Territorial Governments should ensure the safety, quality and consistency of all organs and tissues for transplantation, through comprehensive national safety standards implemented with support from F/P/T governments and service providers for compliance and enforcement. |
9. | Provincial and Territorial governments should fund those elements of the strategy which fall within Provincial and Territorial health systems. |
10. | Federal, Provincial and Territorial Governments should recognize the critical role of social attitudes in increased organ donation and agree to participate and share the costs of a collaborative ongoing social marketing strategy that crosses all societal groups to assist individuals in making personal decisions about organ and tissue donation. |
11. | The Council on Organ and Tissue Donation and Transplantation should be responsible for the development and implementation of an evaluation plan for strategy and the submission of a final evaluation report to Ministers at the end of the fifth year of its work. |