Bedford's religious communities urged to sign up to organ donation register

Bedford Borough Council’s Health and Wellbeing Board (Wednesday, September 25) was told that religious organisations throughout the UK supported organ donation.

Tarsem Paul, chairman of the organ donation committee at the Bedfordshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, said: “Unfortunately, there is a cultural, education, awareness, religious belief, and a whole host of combinations that goes in [to stop people donating].

“All the religious organisations throughout the UK have agreed with NHSBT [NHS Blood and Transplant] that they supported organ donation. Unfortunately what has happened is though. . . that message hasn’t drilled down to the working level.

“There is no holy book that actually says anything [like] what is being drummed into the brains of these individuals to say ‘I can’t do it for x, y, z’. That message needs to go to the community at the working level, at the ground level. [We need to] get that message across because help is needed.”

Donation includes organ transplants (kidney, heart, pancreas etc), but also stem cell and blood donation.

The report to the Board said people from minority ethnic communities make up a third of the active transplant waiting list. However, they make up only 7 out of 100 people who have signed up to the NHSBT Organ Donation Register.

Tarsem Paul said: “We’re trying to promote a couple of new things and one of them is actually extended families, particularly among all communities.

“But importantly among the ethnic communities because there is an extended family where there could be a better match for the patient to help them to live a longer life,” he said.

The report said over 3,000 lives in the UK are “saved or improved” each year by organ donation, but demand is rising each year and always outstrips the number of transplants that could be carried out.

For this reason, the Bedfordshire Hospitals Trust is working with local organisations to encourage people to sign up to the organ donation register and importably to make their loved ones aware of their decision.

You can register on the organ donation register online.

Tarsem Paul said: “Organ donation is a life-giving opportunity for those who are at the end of their lifeline and see no hope.

“Organ donation is an honourable act that could give a ray of hope to another person,” he said.