Article content
For the record, The Citizens Panel on Increasing Organ Donation, in its report submitted to the Ontario government in 2007, advised that the government cannot presume people wish to donate their organs, despite an urgent need. That panel was chaired by Dr. Ted Boadway, former director of health policy at the Ontario Medical Association, and held hearings/meetings across the province. In essence, the panel found that people in this province objected to presumed consent. The panel rejected such a regime, calling it “too passive a method to be a clear statement of an individual’s intent.”
The reality is that most people do not really understand what presumed consent is. Others, I sense, construe it as government essentially telling people what to do, which a large part of the population resents. That said, I think it is again time for policymakers and citizens to discuss and reference it as a part of the solution to the transplantation crisis.