A donor card should seal the holder’s wish to have body organs transplanted on death, medicine and surgery students are insisting through an online petition.
In Malta, having a donor card does not mean that when you die your organs are donated because the next of kin still have to give their permission for the transplant to proceed.
As a White Paper expected to lead to the first organ donation law is being drafted, the Malta Medical Students Association launched a petition calling for a change in the regulations.
“If the next of kin do not agree with organ donation, they might refuse to give their go-ahead to a transplant and healthy organs that can save a lot of lives end up not being donated,” a spokesman said.
Backed by the Malta Transplant Support Group, the association is recommending that once people turn 18 – the legal adult age in Malta – they would have the right to decide what to do with their organs after their death.
“Being in possession of a donor card would mean that the person would have expressed his informed will to donate his organs post-mortem and this wish is inalienable – it does not require any other consent by a third party after the person’s demise,” the association said.
The transplant support group has long been calling on the government to give organ donors the final say in this matter. It raised the issue at a meeting with the Social Affairs Committee, making two exceptions: if, while still alive, people express their wish to opt out of the donation or when they change their religion but do not cancel the donor card before passing away.
The group was also proposing that the State ID card database should indicate who was an organ donor, founder Alfred Debattista said.
An organ receiver himself, Mr Debattista said another recommendation was to add a note in personal hospital files indicating that the patient was a donor, just in case the card went missing.
The support group has, since 2008, issued 2,000 cards every year and there are now 30,000 organ donors in Malta.
This year, the life of several people changed after donors made their organs available to others suffering from some condition. This included renal patient Chris Bartolo who underwent a kidney transplant in February, two years after Times of Malta first reported his desperate appeal. In this case, the person who gave his kidney – a family friend – was a live donor.
Five months later, the sudden death of 11-year-old Miguel Campolo from bacterial meningitis saw the parents donate his kidneys to a man and a woman suffering from renal conditions.
Last month, a former teacher at Guardian Angel School in Ħamrun donated her body to the university’s anatomy department for teaching and research purposes.
Josette Agius’s relatives were initially apprehensive about the donation process but respected her wish and made sure her last act of altruism was fulfilled.
More information on transplant donation and how to apply for the donor card is available at www.transplantsupport.com.mt.
The petition calling for changes to the donor card rules can be found at https://www.change.org/p/maltese-legislature-the-malta-medical-students-association-mmsa-wishes-that-the-regulations-regarding-organ-donation-and-the-donor-card-are-changed .