Tom Shehan (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I was contacted during the week by a consultant from a major trauma hospital. What he hopes will come from this debate is that someone will name the hospitals that are not doing their job. He said that in the case of every trauma he deals with where there is a possibility of organ donation, he, personally, speaks to the family involved. The suggestion has been bandied about here that we need a transplant co-ordinator in every hospital. Let us get a grip.

There is no doubt that the advocacy groups for organ donation and transplantation do their work. However, I suggest we put a pilot scheme in place in one of the major trauma hospitals for one year. This would probably cost approximately €60,000. That would be a fair payment for someone to do that job for a year. Such a pilot would let us see how this would work. If, for example, organ donation doubled in this country in the morning , would we have the infrastructure to deal with that and carry out the transplants? Let us not put the cart before the horse. I am not here to throw mud at anyone. This is a serious issue, but we must look for objective, positive outcomes from this debate.

I suggest the Minister or someone else should select a major trauma hospital in which to run a pilot scheme for one year. A transplant co-ordinator should be put into that hospital to see how the system would work and what percentage increase in donations would result. However, have we the infrastructure and the physicians to carry out increased numbers of transplants if organ donation is doubled in the morning?