Got heart?

Posted by admin on Mar 10, 2010 in Academy | 0 comments

It used to be easy to put off adding your name to the BC organ donor registry. Now it’s just as easy not to put it off: the registry has gone online.

Inspired by this new development, myself and a small group of Communications students are spearheading a campaign to encourage students to consider becoming organ donors. The campaign will fulfill the project requirement of Comm 430: Persuasive Communication, taught by Dr. Bill Strom.

Given that the assignment asks students to choose a target public and attempt to influence their attitudes or behaviour, the choice of a cause was
paramount.

“Why persuade people to do something insignificant?” asks third-year student Amy Tedder. “We wanted to use this opportunity to address an issue that isn’t on the average university student’s radar. To become an organ donor, the effort is minimal and the impact is potentially huge.”

The campaign is ideal on a university campus because it bypasses the normal barriers that hold students back from more conventional donation requests, such as requests for money or to give blood. As one of the campaign posters emphasizes, “You don’t have to go off campus, you don’t have to pay, and it’s not going to hurt.”

The goal of the campaign is to get eligible students to visit transplant.bc.ca, where they can spend a few minutes adding their name to the registry, or spend more time researching organ donation. All students with a BC CareCard (meaning all B.C. residents and international students with the mandatory health coverage) can now either register or confirm their past registration online.

Organ donation can save lives, and yet only 16 per cent of BC CareCard holders have confirmed that they would be willing donors after their death. Even fewer will actually be able to donate, depending on the specific conditions of death and therefore the health of the organs. In North America, there is currently about one (both willing and acceptable) donor out of every 800 hospital deaths. With patients awaiting transplants for months or even years, and often dying during the wait, an increase in the number of potential donors is vital.

“You often don’t think of becoming an organ donor until someone close to you needs an organ,” says fourth-year group member Andrea Doornenbal. “But often,” she adds, “that is too late.”

The ethics of organ donation are not black and white. Concerns arise about doctors not trying as hard to save the lives of potential donors, or about families of people in comas being encouraged to take their loved ones off life support. Information on the transplant.bc.ca site assures readers that organ donor status will not be checked until two doctors have confirmed a patient’s death. Also, medical literature differentiates between a comatose state and that of brain death (which is a precondition for donation).

Consenting to possibly have your organs transplanted is a big decision that must be carefully considered. Our group’s aim is to have students stop putting off the decision, since registration is now easier than ever.

And what’s a persuasive campaign without an incentive? Any student who visits the transplant.bc.ca site to register or confirm past registration can email twuheart@gmail.com to be entered to win a prize package from Tim Hortons.