LONDON, Jan. 13 (UPI) -- Britain's chief medical officer is calling for an overhaul of how human organs are donated to boost the number of transplants in the country.
A report expected to be published this week calls for every major hospital in Britain to have an organ donor specialist to persuade grieving families that the vital organs of their deceased relatives should be used to save the
lives of others.
Sir Liam Donaldson, England's chief medical officer, wants to go a step further and introduce a new system of organ donation because the shortage of organs is so severe, The Observer reported Sunday.
Donaldson is calling for a system of 'presumed consent,' in which everyone in Britain would be presumed to be an organ donor unless they had specifically opted out, or unless their families had objections.
"We have one of the lowest rates (of organ donation) in Europe, far lower than Spain," he told the newspaper. "We have one thousand or more patients dying on the waiting list each year, and there is a lot of suppressed demand, with doctors not even referring patients on to the list because there is no hope for them. That is a lot of patients dying."
