The ‘soft opt-out’ scheme proposed by Health and Social Care will see adults considered to be organ donors unless they opted out.
Those who have neither opted in or out will be considered to have given ‘deemed consent’, and in such cases their family would be consulted prior to donation.
In her opening comments, HSC president Heidi Soulsby said that figures from the UK showed that there were more than 6,000 on the active transplant list, but people had still died – some 400 – because not enough organs were available between 2016-17.
She stressed later in the debate that this was not about ‘forcing’ families to go down a particular route.
A number of members spoke against accepting the proposals.
Among them was Deputy Jane Stephens, who said her concern was the position that a family might be put in where a loved one was close to death and they were being asked to approve donating their organs without knowing their wishes.
‘In my view, relatives would be put in a more difficult position than now if we move to this soft opt-out situation,’ she said.
Deputy Peter Ferbrache said the proposals were ‘too Big Brother-ish’ and he would prefer to see it being made easier for people to register to be an organ donor. ‘It must be done by education,’ he said.
Another member said he was ‘genuinely struggling’ with the proposal. ‘I’m not entirely sure that silence implies consent,’ said Deputy Neil Inder, adding that under the new General Data Protection Regulations consent regarding someone’s personal data had to be unambiguous.
He said that ‘nothing could be worse’ than a parent whose child was dying to be asked to donate their organs.
Deputy Peter Roffey, as a step-father for a young person who had died, said that he could imagine something worse – a situation where a child was dying and a transplant would save them but no organ was available because of the donation system. He supported the policy letter and felt that some people were being over-sensitive to a matter that a lot of people now regarded as something normal.
Deputy Barry Paint said that he lost a member of his family several years ago, and he would have willingly swapped his life for hers had he been able to. But he agreed that families going through a situation like this would be extremely traumatised and could be influenced to do something that they might regret later. ‘It’s a very very bad time for this to happen,’ he said.
A soft opt-out scheme was a ‘halfway house’, said Deputy Matt Fallaize, and while he had some difficulty with the idea of deemed consent, he wondered why the committee had not gone for a ‘hard’ opt-out which would have put the power into the hands of the deceased person rather than the soft opt-out where the family would be likely to play a much larger role.
Do the ends justify the means?, asked Deputy Richard Graham, who said he did not believe they did.
He said that while he did not think anybody could oppose the ends, which was helping patients: ‘My problem is I believe when it comes to the state assuming powers for itself, in whatever form, there are boundaries.’
The States was making rather heavy going of this matter, said Deputy John Gollop, since the matter had already been looked at closely by other communities such as Wales and it seemed as if members were looking at ‘reinventing the wheel’.
A recorded vote was taken on the proposal, which was approved by 23 votes to 14.
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