More living organ donors needed to save lives, says Quebec advocacy group

Having donated a kidney to her sister 17 years ago, Linda Salvoni says it's an act more Quebecers need to consider if they have a loved one on the province's organ transplant list.

There are currently 620 on the wait list for a kidney, which amounts to 70 per cent of people on Quebec's list for an organ transplant. Families can skip the long wait if a loved one decides to step up, but often that doesn't happen.

In 2020 in Quebec, only 28 per cent of all kidney transplants came from living donors.

"That's 70 per cent of people right now who could be saved by someone close to them," said Salvoni, who spoke at Montreal's Mount-Royal lookout Sunday after a climb organized by the group Chain of Life.

The advocacy group, which educates high schoolers about organ and tissue donations, organized the hike to celebrate living donors across Quebec. Climbs were also held on mountains in 15 other regions in the province.

"You can donate your organs after your death, but when you do it while you're living you get to witness how your action impacts others, often someone who you hold very close to your heart," Salvoni said.

"It's not a sacrifice. A sacrifice is when we lose something, but I won my sister."

Her sister Sandra said she still refers to the kidney she received as her cadeaux.

"I had a hard time accepting this gift because she was so young," she said. "She always says that it's a little gift, [that] 'It's nothing, it's easy to do.' Well, it's not. It's not something easy to do."

While most people associate organ donations with those that get passed along after someone dies, the group wants to change that perception — especially considering about 30 Quebecers die each year because they can't get an organ transplant soon enough.

Post-death donations are also rare, the group says, as just over one per cent of the Canadian population dies under conditions that make them eligible, often following a stroke or head trauma.

According to Transplant Québec, which helps co-ordinate organ donations in the province, the number of Quebecers waiting for a transplant increased by 86 people last year, up by more than 10 per cent — the sharpest increase in the past 10 years.

In the same year, only 75 living Quebecers donated an organ, according to Chain of Life, a figure lagging behind every other province in Canada.

The kidney is the most commonly transplanted organ when it comes to living donors, with partial liver and tissue transplants following behind.

Quebecers need to know there's more to it than just signing the back of your medical card, said Lucie Dumont, president and founder of the group. That's because it's not just the donor who needs to consent, but also their family.

"If we educate our youth on this issue, you will have them become ambassadors, and they will be able to make an informed decision," she said. "If they have an informed decision, they can share that decision with their loved ones, with their families."

It was thanks to a liver transplant in 2014 that Audrey Marechal's father is alive today.

"You can help so many people," said Marechal, whose father took part in another Chain of Life climb organized that day in the Magdalen Islands.

"We were praying because oftentimes people get on the transplant list and don't make it off," Marechal said. "He got a whole new life."