About donation

Organ donation offers the gift of life.

Sometimes when people are very ill, the only way they can recover or lead an active, normal life is to receive an organ transplant.

An increasing number of kidneys are donated by living people and it is now possible for a living person to donate a part of a liver.

Most commonly, however, organs are donated by people who have died and Organ Donation New Zealand is involved with these donations. Organ Donation New Zealand and health professionals throughout New Zealand work together to ensure that the person donating and the family are treated with respect and dignity throughout the donation process.

Over 1 million people have indicated their wish to donate organs on their driver licence. Only a small number of people, however, will die in circumstances that makes it possible for organs to be donated for transplantation. People who die at the scene of an accident or die from heart attacks, for example, cannot donate organs for transplantation. This is because once the heart stops and there is a period of time when the organs have no blood and oxygen supply, the organs will not be suitable for donation.

Organ donation most commonly takes place when a person has suffered a severe and irreversible injury to the brain, from bleeding in the brain or from trauma. He/she will be on a ventilator, in a hospital intensive care unit and brain death will have been determined.

More recently in New Zealand organ donation is possible when a person is again on a ventilator in an intensive care unit with a non-survivable head injury but is not brain dead. In some circumstances organ donation can occur immediately after death and this is known as Donation after Cardiac Death.

Tissue donation offers improved quality of life

Tissue donation can include heart valves, eyes (corneas) and skin donation. Corneal transplantation will restore sight, heart valve transplantation will give improved health and skin transplantation can prevent death for patients with severe burns.

Many more people can donate tissues for transplantation as donation is not restricted to those who die in an intensive care unit from an irreversible brain injury. Those who die in hospital or at home can be considered for tissue donation. Eyes and skin can be donated up to 24 hours following death and heart valves up to 48 hours following death.