During a person’s life, there are countless decisions to be made, and hopefully not many as serious as life and death.
But there is one truly selfless decision that could profoundly change someone else’s life.
More than 200 incredibly generous organ donors helped 481 British Columbians receive life-saving organ transplants in 2024.
In that year, six organ donors in Northern Health contributed to this effort. Ben Drover, the on-site organ donation coordinator for Northern Health, was there to help.
Drover works with critical care teams at UHNBC and donor families to coordinate organ donation cases.
For Drover, it began when he was a bedside nurse in the ICU, where he dealt with many organ donation cases.
“I’ve always felt that it’s very important and such a meaningful, impactful thing to be involved with from a healthcare provider’s perspective. When the position of organ donation coordinator became available, I jumped on it. I’ve been doing this job since 2019.”
In Canada, organ donation coordinators either work on the donor side or the recipient side.
“I work completely on the deceased donor’s side,” Drover explained. “I’m involved with family support, discussions to obtain consent, and helping them with the process of organ donation by providing information and walking through different donation pathways, whether it’s a brain-death case, a donation after cardiac termination case, or a MAID case.”
MAID refers to the medical assistance in dying program, where a person receives end-of-life assistance from a medical practitioner.
Drover also provides support for hospital staff.
“I help them throughout the entire process, reaching out to the different sites in Northern Health with ICUs that refer patients to BC Transplant,” Drover explained.
It takes a special type of person to choose a career that continually deals with death and dying.
“I grew up on Haida Gwaii, where there was no funeral home and no mortician,” Drover said. “So I got involved with the local mortician, who wasn’t really a mortician, and we just helped families when a loved one passed. We made arrangements for cremations or burials. I became good friends with him and started tagging along. I did this for about five years, so I got quite comfortable dealing with death. I think it made it easier coming into this role. As a critical care nurse, I saw a lot of death, but in this position, dealing with death and families is a bit more than at the bedside.”
It’s a tough job.
“There are definitely tough days, but there are also good days when you realize why you do this job. Even on tough days, we’re still making a positive impact by saving someone’s life and helping make donation successful,” Drover explained.
Knowing that, in some way, the donor will live on in the recipient often brings comfort to families who have lost a loved one, he added.
“Even though we can’t change the outcome for their loved one, we can bring a positive aspect to the loss, which I think is really important,” Drover said.
The process begins when ICU staff identify a patient who meets the criteria for organ donation.
“There has to be a grave prognosis, and they must have the intention to move to comfort care and be ventilated,” he said. “We also assess eligibility in terms of health history and whether they are registered donors. Once a referral comes through, we do a care connect review, where we look into their health history, which might rule them out as an organ donor. Then we discuss our findings with ICU and make a plan to meet with the donor family to discuss organ donation.”
Drover provides the family with all the necessary information about the process, the different diagnostics that will be done, the pathways for donation, potential barriers to donation, and the timeline for that particular case. He then seeks consent.
“We work to book an operating room, and at the same time, the Northern Health organ donation allocation teams look for potential recipients for the organs,” Drover explained.
“Once we find a matched recipient, we set an operating room date. While we are retrieving the organs, the recipients are being prepared. There is a very short window between retrieval and implantation, called cold ischemic time. The heart has between four and six hours, the kidney has 24 hours, and the liver has eight to 10 hours. Each person can potentially donate their heart, kidneys, liver, pancreas, and islets of the pancreas.”
“So each person has the potential to save six lives,” Drover said.
When considering organ donation, there are a few important points.
“You are much more likely to need an organ than to ever be able to be an organ donor yourself,” Drover said. “Knowing that organ donation is an option for loved ones during end-of-life care is something that has a positive impact and saves lives. I think that’s probably the most important thing—knowing it’s an option.”
Currently, 6,318 British Columbians are alive today because of organ donation.
In 2024, there were 118 deceased donors and 90 living donors, contributing to 309 kidney transplants, 92 liver transplants, 47 lung transplants, 25 heart transplants, and 13 pancreas and islet transplants (including five pancreas/kidney transplants).
After three consecutive years of record highs, the number of deceased donors has returned to more historic levels. BC Transplant honours the additional 44 deceased donors and their families who consented to organ donation but were unfortunately not suitable.
There were a record 1,119 referrals from hospitals and healthcare providers for potential donors in 2024, compared to 989 in 2023.
“To help normalize conversations about organ donation, we are partnering with the Canada Revenue Agency on a new public awareness initiative this spring,” said Dr. Sean Keenan, provincial medical director of donation services at BC Transplant.
British Columbians will see a checkbox on their annual tax return asking if they would like to receive information about registering as an organ donor. Anyone who selects "yes" will receive an email from BC Transplant later this year with information on how to register.
British Columbians can register as organ donors online at www.registeryourdecision.ca. It takes just two minutes, and all you need is your Personal Health Number.
As of December 31, 2024, there were still 666 people waiting for their second chance.
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