B.C. again leads Canada with highest number of deceased organ donors, province says

British Columbia saw a record-breaking 563 organ transplants last year from a record 160 deceased organ donors and 77 living donors.

Edward Ferre, provincial operations director for B.C. Transplant, says the province had 28.8 deceased donors per million people in 2023, the highest of anywhere in Canada.

He says B.C. Transplant staff work in intensive care units to ensure patients are referred as potential donors, as mandated by provincial law.

But Ferre said there are still 512 people waiting for a transplant in B.C. Part of the effort to get more residents registered to donate their organs involves educating youth, he added.

Organ donations from people killed by the toxic drug crisis — the leading cause of death for British Columbians aged 10 to 59 — is also driving deceased donation rates, according to the Provincial Health Services Authority.

One-third of all deceased organ donations every year in B.C. have been from toxic drug deaths since 2015, a PHSA spokesperson told the CBC in an email in July.

Data from the Canadian Institute for Health Information shows B.C. is ahead of other jurisdictions when it comes to organ donations for the third year in a row.

Last year, it had 29.8 deceased donors per million population while Ontario had 21.8 and Alberta, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut each had 21.