Helwer stresses need for more organ donors
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 20/04/2019 (2371 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
A local MLA is urging Manitobans to register their intent to be an organ donor online after the province announced a shift from organ donation cards to an online system.
“We’re trying to make it easier and more accessible,” Brandon West Progressive Conservative MLA Reg Helwer said on Wednesday.
“It was recommended that we have one registry going forward,” Helwer said. “If it’s attached to your health record, then (doctors and paramedics) know what your wishes are and it makes it easier to have that discussion with your family.”
As of Tuesday, the province had 37,037 Manitobans who had registered intent to donate organs or tissues.
After yesterday’s announcement of the online-only system, the number of registered Manitobans jumped to 38,477, Helwer said.
The increase follows a record number of approximately 11,000 signing up last year in the wake of the Humboldt Broncos bus crash.
Humboldt hockey player Logan Boulet signed up to be a donor approximately five weeks before he and 15 others died in the accident.
His organs were donated to six people, helping save lives and setting off what has been called “the Logan Boulet effect” across the country, prompting more Canadians to sign up to donate.
“It’s very rewarding, but we still need more,” Helwer said. “We’re going to continue to promote it. Every time I speak publicly I tend to include this topic and ask people to go sign up.”
Organ and tissue transplant policies have been a topic close to Helwer’s heart since before he was first elected in 2011.
His daughter, Jessica Stobbe, has IgA nephropathy, a kidney disease she first noticed more than a decade ago at the age of 19, by which time her kidneys were functioning at approximately 50 per cent and dropping.
In 2010, her mother, Aynsley Helwer, donated a kidney to her, followed by another donation from her brother, Andrew Helwer, in 2017.
“Our daughter … has had living donors, but not everyone has that availability,” Helwer said. “This is why signupforlife.ca is so important. People need access to deceased donors.”
Manitobans who already have donor cards are encouraged to re-register in the province’s online database, signupforlife.ca.
Those who register their intent to donate are also encouraged to discuss their wishes with their families — who ultimately have the final say when it comes to whether to donate deceased loved ones’ remains.
“A lot of people come up to me and say they’re a donor — thank you,” Helwer said with a laugh. “Please go and sign up and we’ll build that database, which becomes a country-wide database as well … one person’s decision can save up to eight people and have impact on many more lives with tissue transplants and such.”
» edebooy@brandonsun.com, with files from the Winnipeg Free Press
» Twitter: @erindebooy