Maori challenged on lack of organ donation

Phil Heremaia wants Maori to discuss the issue of organ donation with family members. Picture / Brett Phibbs

A Maori health worker is going on the road in a bid to improve New Zealand's low organ donation rate, especially among his own people.

Phil Heremaia said yesterday that the shortage of organs was so serious he would give up his case manager job at the Counties Manukau District Health Board and begin his national education campaign within two months.

"I'm hitting the road about organ donation [aiming to reach] mainly Maori because, to me, they don't believe in it like a lot of other ethnic groups," said Mr Heremaia yesterday.

"There's a question they need to ask themselves. I'm Maori myself. If we are not wanting to give [organs], coming from a cultural perspective, why should we receive?"

A former funeral director and mortuary manager, he said that while older Maori still commonly opposed organ donation because of cultural and spiritual beliefs about the need for completeness when a dead person was buried, younger Maori were changing their views.

The 53-year-old, of Ngapuhi descent, had been involved in talking to some families about their dead relatives becoming donors, and said the focus of his campaign would be to urge people to talk to their families about organ donation so their wishes were known.

Mr Heremaia's comments came on the eve of today's scheduled first debate by MPs of National health spokeswoman Jackie Blue's private member's bill aimed at creating an opt-on organ donor register and enforcing the wishes of people who want to become donors.

At present, doctors respect the wishes of the family when deciding whether to take the organs of a brain-dead person, such as a car-accident victim.

New Zealand has one of the lowest organ donor rates in the Western world. Last year just 29 people became donors after they had died.

An audit published in 2002 found that of 104 patients who could have been donors, 38 were. Of the rest, 31 families refused consent and 35 families were not asked.

The Health Ministry says reasons for refusing consent "are not clear, but may include cultural or religious considerations or knowledge of the deceased's opposition to becoming an organ donor".

An Australian study of voluntary organ donor registers found that 95 per cent of families agreed to organ donation from a dead relative if the person had stated a wish to be a donor. This dropped to 50 to 60 per cent consent if the person's wishes were not known.

Dr Blue's bill is assured of going to a select committee, since Labour has decided to support it that far.

But she acknowledges her bill needs refinement. As worded, it retains the discretion currently held, in effect, by a hospital's chief medical officer. Intensive care specialists say very few doctors would enforce organ donation - even if the patient had signed a register - when faced with a grieving family who were opposed.