- Conference
- 2016 National Black Members' Conference
- Date
- 24 September 2015
- Decision
- Carried
Conference, for many years medical science has been discovering life changing and life saving ways to increase life expectancy of human beings. However one of the areas that need to be highlighted for enhancing and saving life is organ donation. A donation is where a person donates their organs and tissues for transplant. A transplant can save a person’s life or improve their health and quality of life.
In the UK, around 10,000 people need a transplant but without donors, they cannot be helped. However, according to NHS data, 6904 people were on the transplant waiting list as of March 2015 and fewer than 5,000 people die each year in circumstances where they can donate their organs.
Many Black people in the UK are adverse to organ donation on the grounds of ethical reasons, scepticism, lack of accurate information and fear. Records show that people from Black communities will wait a year longer for a kidney transplant than white people. Today, a person from a Black community who is in need of a stem cell transplant has less than a 20% chance of finding the best possible match from an unrelated donor, whilst a white British patient in the same position has a 60% chance. Statistics surrounding Black people in regards to organ donation and blood donation are also worryingly low.
Conference, it really is time for people who are in need of organ donation to experience life without, numerous hospital trips a week, associated health aliments and ultimately death.
Becoming an organ donor, is an opportunity to save a life and to support someone to have a better quality of life.
Conference therefore calls upon the National Black Members Committee to:
1)Highlight the importance and different types of organ donation and create awareness via Black Action
2)Encourage regional Black members’ Self-organised groups to highlight this issue in their branches and work alongside other self-organised groups
3)Organise a fringe meeting to highlight this important issue at the 2017 National Black Members’ Conference and invite a relevant organisation to help facilitate this fringe meeting.