Organ donations hit record level

There was a record number of organ donations last year as deceased donors increased by 60 per cent on 2010, the Irish Kidney Association said today.

The association called for an organ donor registry to be introduced to further increase levels as Organ Donor Awareness week began.

There were 93 deceased organ donors last year, which allowed 248 organ transplants to be carried out.

Last year surpassed the previous record of 91 deceased donors which was set in 1998. There were 58 deceased donors in 2010.

The association noted that the highest number of donors came in the same year as the lowest number of road traffic deaths.

Association chief executive Mark Murphy said this dispelled "the public myth that most organ donors come from road traffic accidents".

He called on the Minister for Health to give more resources to organ donation and transplantation. This would help address the growing numbers on transplant waiting lists and a doubling of kidney patients on dialysis in the past decade, the association said.

Mr Murphy said organ donation and transplantation was cheaper for the Government than dialysis.

"Transplantation is far less costly than dialysis and with a sharp increase from 893 dialysis patients between 2002 to a staggering 1795 by the end of 2011, such investment makes economic sense," Mr Murphy said.

Over 650 people are waiting organ transplants in Ireland, the association said.

Mr Murphy also called for an Irish organ donor registry to be set up which would allow people to voluntarily identify themselves on an electronic database.