Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In reference to my Member’s statement earlier today on organ donation in the NWT, I will be asking the Minister of Health and Social Services a couple questions.
First, I think it’s important that we get a snapshot of the lay of the land, so to speak, in terms of our physical layout or our capacity in the organ donation department. My first question is: Are NWT hospitals currently able to receive organ or tissue donations?
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. The Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Beaulieu.
Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. The hospitals in the NWT are currently unable to receive harvested organs and tissue donation; however, they are working with the Hope Foundation, which is a human organ procurement exchange out of Edmonton. They work with them to try to harvest or do organ donation, if the possibility exists and the opportunity exists.
I appreciate the Minister for answering that question. I think, again, in order to set the stage here in terms of statistics and how relevant tissue and organ donation is as an issue, not only in Canada but the Northwest Territories. Does the department have any statistics on the number of NWT residents who have been involved with transplants as of late?
No statistics, like, very recently, within the last two or three years. However, up until 2010 and going back about 15 years, there has been 22 different patients that had received kidney transplants in a five-year period up until about 2000. We need more information. We are going to update the information that I have with me. It was approximately 25 people that received other organ donations and other tissue donations.
I do appreciate the Minister getting back to us maybe with some more current statistics involving transplants. The Minister mentioned in his first response to one of my questions about the Hope Foundation which is located in Edmonton. Would the Minister have any current statistics on how many NWT donors that the Hope Foundation has been referred to or used in the Edmonton hospital area?
I don’t have the statistics on the Hope Foundation, but I will ask the department, through the deputy minister, to try to get that information to determine how many donations were made from people that live in the NWT to the Hope Foundation.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Again, I do appreciate the Minister getting back to us at least with specifics.
As I mentioned in my Member’s statement earlier today, in August of 2002 the then Minister of Health, Mr. Michael Miltenberger, was to report back to the House here regarding a task force on this subject. Upon my asking the Department of Health and Social Services, they were unable to provide a copy, so I’m going to ask the Minister today here if he would help commit in helping retrieve this copy or finding this copy, because I believe there is probably some great work that was done a few years ago that would probably be a value add as we move forward in this process.
I don’t have the action plan, but I do know that there has been a scan of the legislation. They have reviewed the requirements in order to develop legislation and the requirements, such as having two physicians to declare a death on harvesting organs, developing criteria around brain death, prohibiting the declaring doctors to be involved in the transplant, prohibit buying, selling or dealing with human tissue, and the whole issue of confidentiality also. Those are the things that I think the department has reviewed in order to move forward on the development of some sort of an act, and I guess that would form part of any action plan that the department may produce.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The honourable Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Moses.
