‘I’m scared’: The impact of the organ donation program being suspended

Organ donation programs in Saskatchewan are the most recent services to feel the crunch of surging COVID-19 cases.

As of Dec. 31, there were 79 people in the province waiting for an organ transplant, according to the Canadian Institute for Health Information.

Eden Janzen, 25, is one of those people.

She said she was diagnosed with chronic kidney disease five years ago, then suffered kidney failure a year later.

Janzen says the longer she has to wait to get a new kidney, the longer her life is put on pause.

“I’ve been on dialysis for four years. My kidneys failed me and I’m using dialysis to kind of keep me alive,” Janzen said. “Now we don’t get organs and we need our organs to live.

“Receiving new organs, it gives people another chance of life and being healthy and happy. Now that has been taken away from us.”

Many non-critical services are putting on the brakes as resources are diverted to ICUs around the province. 

Janzen hopes that with ICU’s filling up around Saskatchewan, more people will make the decision to get vaccinated.

“With COVID, it’s not just the transplant, you have to do so much testing and ultrasounds so everything has been on hold for everybody,” Janzen said. “I’m just hopeful this kind of opens people’s eyes and they have a change of heart.

“If they didn’t get their vaccine because they’re busy, or they just simply didn’t want to, I hope that they will. It’s not just COVID now that’s affecting people. Now people with compromised immune systems and failing organs are put more at risk.”

As of Sunday, a total of 281 people are hospitalized with COVID, including 218 inpatient hospitalizations and 63 ICU hospitalizations.

Of the 281 people in hospital, 222 are not fully vaccinated.

“It’s not easy living with failed organs. Having a transplant program in place, even though it takes a while, it gives us hope,” Janzen said. “It gives us hope that we will have a better life.

“Now I’m scared that it’s not going to happen for me. I’m pretty scared that I might not ever get a kidney.”

Not all organ donations are paused; only immediate tissue donation that are considered urgent will continue.

Non-critical and elective surgeries have also been put on the back burner.

According to data from from the Government of Saskatchewan, 6,535 people were waiting more than a year for a surgery as of June 30. That number is expected to grow the longer this pause is in place.

The Saskatchewan Health Authority hasn’t given a timeline on when majority of the services will resume.