Recruit Hospital-based Specialists to Combat Falling Transplant Rates – Australian Expert

Organ shortage is resulting in falling transplants in Australia and hence urgent steps are required to combat the trend, a leading surgeon has suggested.

According to a federal government report, Australia's transplant rate is falling, with only 198 people last year donating their organs, compared to 202 in 2006.

There are almost 1,800 Australians currently waiting for a transplant, despite 5.5 million organ donors registered in the country.

To fix the problem, Associate Professor Alan Glanville, from St Vincent's Hospital in Sydney, has suggested that hospital organ transplant coordinators should be recruited to identify patients who could become donors.

"We need to make sure Australians don't die needlessly on the waiting list," said Prof Glanville.

"The government has within its power the ability to put together the structure like this."

Prof Glanville's comments come just a week before the group charged with increasing awareness of organ donation is shut down by the federal government.

Australians Donate will be axed next week and replaced by a new committee, federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon has said.

“Over the past decade the number of Australians on dialysis has grown by 6% per annum, adding an additional $25 million yearly to healthcare expenditure,” the The Medical Journal of Australia, had observed in 2005.

“This growth is caused by both increasing numbers of people entering dialysis programs and a low rate of transplantation because of a shortage of donor kidneys. Kidney availability in Australia remains low and, if anything, is worsening, with only 6.8% of those on dialysis receiving transplants in 2002, compared with 11.7% a decade earlier,” it noted editorially.