The First Minister will today make a statement on setting out the legislative programme for the next year and the Welsh Liberal Democrats are calling on the Labour-Plaid government to make a start on transferring the powers on organ donation.
Presumed consent or organ donation ‘opt out’ is a process where people are considered to want to donate their organs upon death unless they say otherwise.
Wales can lead the way in ensuring that people who are on waiting list for organs do not die unnecessary. A switch to presumed consent will mean there are more organs available for people waiting for a transplant. Just as we lead the way in making Wales the first country to ban smoking in public places, we can change the organ donation system to save thousands of lives.
An overwhelming majority of people in Wales do want to donate their organs when they die, however, the major obstacle to this process is the bureaucracy surrounding the system. We know that over two-thirds of the population want to donate their organs but only a third have joined the Organ Donor Register.
We know that this system works as Belgium, who introduced opt-out in 1986, has seen a big increase in the number of organs available for transplant and only 2% of the population has opted out.
While we encourage and support the opt-out scheme and its potential to save thousands of lives, we need to ensure that people in Wales know exactly what this system means as it will affect everybody in Wales. There are some groups of people and different religions who object and their wishes must be respected.
As we already know, the current legislative system in Wales is slow and cumbersome and it will take a long time to get this system operating. A person in Wales dies every 11 days waiting to receive and organ. If there’s ever a time when we can argue that we need a change in our devolution settlement, it’s now.
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