Consultant calls for more to be done about lack of ethnic minorities on donor register list

In a personal view published on bmj.com, a leading nephrology consultant says more organ donations are needed from ethnic minorities and suggests an approach that gives priority for receipt to those who have already donated or pledged to donate.

Adnan Sharif, who works at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, says that although organ donation from decreased donors has been boosted by 50% since 2008, it is “too early to ascertain whether the increase in organ quantity has come at the expense of a decrease in organ quality”. Plus, he says there has been a “huge failure” in boosting organ donation from the black, Asian and other minority ethnic communities.

Ethnic minorities make up 10.8% of the UK population but make up 24% of organ waiting lists. Of actual organ donors, only 4.2% are from minority ethnic backgrounds.

Relatives of non-white people are less likely to give consent for organ donation from relatives who have died, than white people and because of this, minority ethnic people have longer average waiting times.

Mr Sharif adds that “pushing for more registrants […] is not the solution because only a third of eventual donors are actually registered at the time of their death”.

He suggests a new approach, adopted in Israel, where prioritisation for transplantation is given to previous actual donors or those registered to be donors for at least three years. As such, Israel has benefited from a boost in organ procurement and a reduction in waiting lists.

Mr Sharif says that although this would raise ethnical difficulties and “translating […] to the United Kingdom would be fraught with challenges”, a prioritisation system “has inherent fairness for all” and is “likely to serve as an impetus for minority ethnic people”.

He concludes that it is unlikely that organ donation from minority ethnic communities will substantially improve by 2020 but urges that prioritisation be adopted as it would help “overcome apathy” in donation and “must be actively explored”.