|
Chris tackles
transplant taboos
 A
nurse
in the Brighton IntensiveCare Unit has started a new role as the trust’s donor
liaison sister.
Chris Elding has worked on the
unit for the past two years. She was previously a transplant co-ordinator in
Bristol for five years working with donor families and renal patients on the
waiting list.
Her Brighton appointment is a
brand new role and was made shortly before National Transplant Week earlier this
month.
She will be a link between the
treating team and the donor transplant co-ordinators responsible for ensuring
that intensive care and other staff are aware of the procedures for identifying
possible donors and how to approach relatives to give them the opportunity to
decide for themselves.
Her post is funded by UK
Transplant as part of the government’s £4 million national initiative to
boost the number of life saving organ transplant operations.
Chris says: "I am very
passionate about organ and tissue donation. It’s very rewarding to support
families as they make their own decision at a very difficult time. It can be
very hard for staff, too, so I am here to support them as well."
The role is for the education
and support for staff and patients right across the trust, on all sites,
covering all wards and department areas.
"Initially," she
says, "I will be focusing primarily on developing an educational strategy
for intensive care but then it will be broadened out for the whole of the trust.
"ITU is very positive
about organ donation but on the wards they haven’t had an awful lot of
education about tissue donation and often think tissue donation issues don’t
apply to ward areas.
"But if you die on the
wards, or indeed at home, there are an awful lot of things you can donate –
corneas, heart valves and things – but a lot of staff have never had any
education in it. They don’t always feel quite comfortable about bringing up
the subject with the bereaved family at the time and so I’m there to support
them and offer ways that that can be eased."
Where she’s really coming
from, she says, is the fact that we publicise and educate the public to carry
their card, sign on the organ donor register and make their wishes known when
they’re living. But if we’re not matching it with the ability to do that
when you’re in hospital setting after death, then it’s not good practice.
"Every patient that comes
through the door could be a potential donor, if that’s what they wish. But we’re
not always broaching that subject because one, we don’t have education and
knowledge about it and, two, we feel it’s uncomfortable sometimes because it’s
a very stressful time for families."
The big thing for donors to
do, she says, is make sure their families are aware of their wishes, in the same
way as they say I want to be buried or cremated.
"From a staff point of
view, by not approaching the families and saying this is available to you, is it
something you’ve discussed? they almost take that responsibility on their own
shoulders because there’s such a short time frame – about 24 hours – to do
something.
"At first they’re
completely shell-shocked and if they go home and look at the will or two days
later find a donor card, it’s then too late."
It’s a matter of looking at
it in a different light, Chris explains. "I think staff may feel they are
asking for eyes or asking for hearts and it’s not that. All we’re doing is
offering information in the same way as you ask [at the County] ‘would you
like to make an appointment to see Yvonne in Registration?’ you could ask ‘have
you considered whether or not he or she carried a donor card?’
Last year nearly 400 people
died waiting for a transplant. One in ten people waiting for a heart transplant
will die and many others will lose their lives even before they get on a waiting
list.
During the next three years for which she has
been appointed, Chris hopes she will be able to help bring about changes locally
that will contribute to a reduction in those grim figures.
¨ Research
shows that 70 per cent of people support organ donation and when asked most
relatives give consent, but many are not asked. We know from past experience
that friends and relatives can be comforted by the knowledge that their tragedy
has given hope to others. Donation may be the one positive thing to come out of
a tragic situation and the family should always be given this option.
– UK
Transplant Chief Executive,
Sue Sutherland.
|
The Royal Sussex County Hospital, Brighton