For the fifth straight year, the Chatham-Kent Health Alliance has been recognized for its outstanding efforts to integrate organ and tissue donation into quality end-of-life care.
The acknowledgment from Ontario Health’s Trillium Gift of Life Network saw hospital officials presented with the Provincial Eligible Approach Rate Award and the Provincial Conversion Rate Award – two awards that recognize life-saving organ and tissue donation within a hospital.
The first award recognizes CKHA for exceeding the provincial average approach rate of 90 per cent – CKHA’s rate was 100 per cent. The eligible approach rate measures the number of families approached to discuss the potential of organ donation for their loved ones, against the total number of cases where donation was a possibility, and a family could be approached.
The second award recognizes hospitals that have exceeded the provincial target rate of 63 per cent of potential organ donors moving forward to become actual. This year, CKHA achieved a rate of 100 per cent.
Ontario Renal Network and Trillium Gift of Life Network Ontario Health vice-president Rebecca Cooper called CKHA’s contribution “outstanding.”
CKHA president and CEO Lori Marshall said she could “not be prouder.
“These achievements are a reflection of the best practices put in place that continue to support our commitment to organ and tissue donation,” Marshall said, noting she wants to congratulate the hospital’s organ donation committee and staff and physicians on the significant achievement.
Currently in Ontario there are 1,400 citizens in need of a life-saving organ transplant, while thousands more wait for life-restoring tissue transplants. Every three days in the province, someone dies waiting for an organ or valuable tissue.
For more information about organ and tissue donation visit beadonor.ca.
