A record-setting number of organ transplant procedures took place in Alberta in 2017 and health officials confirm a quarter of the transplants involved organs from donors who died from an overdose.
Alberta Health Services’ Donation Program saw an eight per cent increase in organ donations last year and the cause of death for 21 of the 84 deceased organ donors in 2017 was determined to be a drug overdose.
For many recipients, the life-or-death nature of their need for an organ does not allow them an opportunity to select whose organ they receive.
Dr. Andreas Kramer, medical director for the Southern Alberta Organ and Tissue Donation Program, says victims of fatal overdoses often die when the drug inhibits breathing, stops the heart and causes irreparable damage to the brain. The overdose does not automatically exclude the deceased from organ donation.
“It is one of the conditions where somebody might be eligible for organ donation,” explained Dr. Kramer. “Just like with any other organ donor, in each case there would be a very sophisticated and explicit process for making sure that the organs are in fact safe to transplant. That there won’t be an infectious or malignant transmissible disease that’s transplanted into the recipient.”
“It is true that, particularly with intravenous drug use, there might be a somewhat higher risk of hepatitis or H.I.V. but the process of preparing for organ donation involves carefully ruling out those kinds of diseases.
Calgarian Amy Montgomery received a liver transplant in Edmonton on November 26, 2017, only days after her name was added to the liver recipient list.
“I was listed officially on a Thursday and I got the call on a Saturday at midnight. Technically, I was only on the list for, give-or-take, two to three days,” said Montgomery. “I was shocked because the nurses and doctors told me to pack a bag as soon as I was listed on Thursday, telling me that organ donation was on the rise and it could be any day. From what I’ve understood, any day means they tell you that but its months and years and that’s kind of what I had in my mind.”
Montgomery, who was born with a pediatric liver disease called biliary atresia, says her blood type and the severity of her illness placed her high on the waiting list but there weren’t many names on the list to begin with. While the 34-year-old mother says she has been told her anonymous liver donor died of cardiac failure, she knew there was a possibility before the transplant that she would receive a drug user’s organ.
“I watch the news enough to know,” said Montgomery. “The cases are always so heartbreaking and thinking of what sort of organ you’re going to get is a hard thing to do because it doesn’t necessarily matter what happens once it’s transplanted. If it works with your body, it works with your body.”
“I can understand in cases where you have the ability to be picky but, in the way our system works, it is the sickest people and the people that need it the most that gets the organ. Especially in my case, I would have died if I didn’t have an organ.”
Montgomery says she placed her trust in the medical professionals that she would receive a healthy liver. She encourages everyone to enroll in organ donation as the gesture has offered her, and other recipients, a new lease on life.
“Every day I wake up and I feel better than the day before. Step by step I’m getting this life back that I’ve always wanted.”
For information on organ and tissue donation, visit Alberta Organ and Tissue Donation Registry.
With files from CTV's Brenna Rose
