I have nothing but praise for the care and love that is being shown by Ms Sarah Borg who is appealing for a kidney donation to her former partner and father of her son. Her drama which is now a drama shared by a nations brings to the fore a number of important issues about organ donation.

I became interested in the subject a few years ago when together with a number of other persons/organisations we launched a campaign aimed at increasing the number of people registered as organ donors. We had managed to increase the number from a few hundreds to thousands.

Certain organs e.g. kidneys can be donated while one is still alive while most organs can only be given after one’s death. These include kidneys, heart and liver, among others. Organs (with the exception of corneas) can only be taken from persons who died while they were still on a life supporting machine since this machine keeps on pumping the blood necessary for these organs to remain ‘alive’.

Our campaign was for after-death donations. Donation between living persons was definitively kept on the backburner as it brings with it a number of problems which after-death donation do not present. The ideal should be that enough people register so that there will be enough organs donated from cadavers. Unfortunately this is not always the case. Donations between living persons becomes necessary and should be considered as a sign of the highest levels of altruistic love. It is very clear that Ms Borg felt that in her ex-partner’s situation there were no such organs and she is striving for this alternative.

God forbid that organs are donated against payment. Ms Borg worded her advert appropriately so that she is promising only to cover costs. She clearly said that she is not interested in buying organs. This, in my opinion can be considered to be legitimate, although we are treading on very thin ice. Who is to judge what could be legitimately considered as expenses and what is pure (or, better still, impure) payment? According to media reports one of those who showed interest clearly stated that he is interested to do it for the money. This implies that he expects more (probably much more) than mere compensation for expenses.

Unfortunately in Malta there are several persons in the position of Mr Chris Bartolo, for whom the appeal is being made. They did not come up with the idea of advertising their predicament. Should they be placed in a disadvantage for not doing so even if medically they would be more indicated for a particular transplant? Will the media now give the same coverage to those who are on the waiting list or will they be told that their case has no news value as after covering a number of personal stories the subject will lose its glamour to the public?

As I wrote in the very first sentence, the action of Ms Borg is most laudable. It also places on us the responsibility to register as organ donors. However I think that the final decision of who receives or not an organ is a very delicate decision that could be better handled by the caring professions who can carefully and conscientiously weigh the merits of each case.