Improving organ donation in Canada
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* Wayne Kondro

*   © 2007 Canadian Medical Association or its licensors

[The author responds:]

The points made in the letter from David Hollomby and colleagues are ones made by Ms. Young in the original News article.1 Dr. Martin takes issue with the notion that Canada lacks a national registry or mechanism for allocating organs, similar to the United Network for Organ Sharing, and argues that the existing informal arrangement for allocating livers, albeit underfunded, operates to tackle ways to optimize liver allocation and transplant outcomes. The News article did not suggest otherwise and it certainly does not state that organ sharing is somehow an afterthought. On the contrary, it stated that there is limited sharing within programs. It also noted that the liver community may soon adopt a more formal allocation system that gives preference to urgent cases under a status system.

Both of these letter writers argued for a quintessential made-in-Canada system to “reflect our reality,” as Dr. Martin so eloquently put it. As the News article made clear, neither should be concerned on that score. Such a unique system is already here.

## REFERENCE

1.  1. Kondro W. Fragmented organ donation programs hinder progress. CMAJ 2006;175(9):1043.
    
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