Manitoba sees record number of kidney transplants

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This article was published 22/04/2024 (534 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A record number of Manitobans donated and received kidneys last year.

Eighty-three Manitobans received a kidney through the adult transplant program at Health Sciences Centre in 2023, surpassing the previous high of 77 set in 2017.

“Without donors and the generosity behind the decision to give the gift of life, transplant programs like ours wouldn’t have the opportunity to offer individuals a chance to live a healthy, active life free from dialysis,” Dr. Julie Ho, the program’s medical director, said at Health Sciences Centre Monday afternoon.

More than 69,000 Manitobans have signed up with the registry since 2012, including 4,000 last year.

Funded by two anonymous donors and, in part, by the previous Progressive Conservative government, the Health Sciences Centre consolidated its kidney transplant services under one roof in 2021.

The centre provides enhanced care for living kidney donors, pre-transplant and post-transplant patients and recipients.

The province is “on par” with the rest of the country in rates of kidney transplants, Ho said, but sees higher-than-average rates of chronic kidney disease.

“Manitoba has one of the highest rates of kidney failure in Canada, so it’s not enough for us to be just as much as the rest of Canada; we want to be better than everyone else in Canada,” Ho said.

The provincial government has long encouraged members of the public to sign up as organ donors, but has not moved forward on presumed consent legislation — which would make everyone a donor unless they opt out of the program.

Presumed consent legislation was passed in Nova Scotia in 2019 — the first of its kind in North America — and went into effect in 2021.

The Manitoba government promised to study the change. Current Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara said the conversation is ongoing.

“It’s certainly not off the table,” Asagwara said Monday. “But our priority is making sure that we’re supporting the good work that’s being done, and to better understand what we can do as a government to support increased donation capacity here in our province.”

Meanwhile, Manitoba set a record for posthumous organ donations in 2023, with 30; the previous record was 22, set in 2018.

Dr. Owen Mooney, medical director for Transplant Manitoba’s Gift of Life program, urged families to make decisions on organ donation before there is a medical emergency.

The hope is to bring “comfort and meaning… in what is, ultimately, a tragedy,” Mooney said.

“It’s best if this starts long before they meet me, or co-ordinators in the intensive care unit, when you’ve just been told that your family member is not going to survive. The best way to signal your intent to be a donor is to talk to them now.”

Manitobans can sign up with the province’s organ and tissue donor registry at signupforlife.ca.

malak.abas@freepress.mb.ca