FRAGMENTED donor lists and outdated systems are slowing life-saving organ transplants in the Philippines, prompting calls for a digital overhaul of the country’s donation network.
During a House of Representatives hearing on proposed amendments to Republic Act 7170, or the Organ Donation Act of 1991, Thomasian priest-scientist Fr. Nicanor Pier Giorgio Austriaco, O.P., called for a unified, secure digital registry to better match donors and recipients nationwide.
A technical working group in the House of Representatives is consolidating several bills seeking to update the more than three-decade-old law.
Austriaco, chair of the Department of Health’s National Transplant Ethics Committee, said the system was disjointed, with donor and waiting lists maintained separately by agencies such as the National Kidney and Transplant Institute and the DOH.
“Imagine if you are a hospital in Negros and you have a patient who is dying, and there is a potential donor in Benguet, we really do not have the infrastructure to put those two together,” he told the Varsitarian.
He urged lawmakers to establish a single national list accessible to transplant and referral hospitals through a secure online platform or mobile app. Existing lists, he said, were often maintained as Excel files.
“We live in the 21st century. The idea is that we want to upgrade the technology and the software that will undergird the organ donation system,” he said.
He warned against commercializing organ donation, saying it would be exploitative in a poor country like the Philippines and could put donors at risk, especially if complications arise after recipients return to their home countries.
“Organ trafficking is immoral and should be illegal. It is illegal in our country, and we should keep it that way because it’s the poorest who are exploited, not the ones with money,” he said.
Austriaco backed an opt-in approach over an opt-out system for organ donation.
Under an opt-out system, hospitals presume a person is a donor unless a document states otherwise. Under an opt-in system, hospitals must verify that the person had consented to donate.
Still, family consent often determines whether organ retrieval proceeds, he said.
“So I’ve always said it’s not opt-in, we have to have family-in. So when the family gives the organ, it’s easier to retrieve the organ from the patient who has now been declared dead,” he said.
Austriaco said safeguards were needed to ensure donation remained voluntary and free from coercion.
He noted that organ donation remained low, particularly for post-mortem donation, despite what he described as Filipinos’ generous culture.
“We would also like to encourage our kababayan to donate because we have one of the lowest donation rates for post-mortem death.”
Austriaco attributed low donation rates to misinformation and beliefs surrounding organ transplantation.
His committee plans to work with Catholic bishops and Muslim leaders on public education and a nationwide awareness campaign.
“The goal is to teach our kababayan, to inform them and make them more aware of the great gift of life that they have, that they can share it with their relatives and with those who are waiting for that gift.” With reports from Mary Dawn S. Santos
