Organ and Tissue Information

The Hamer Family Story and Quest

Ter has been speaking on the subject of organ and tissue donation to service clubs, such as the Rotary, the Elks and Royal Purple of Canada, the Knights of Columbus and the Catholic Women's League in the diocese of Grourard/McLennon. He has been doing this since his wife, Julaine received a heart transplant with followup of 3 months rehabilitation at the University of Alberta Hospital, they realized many people who were waiting for organs were told to go home and wait until the appropriate organ came available. Many times the organ was not found.

We are a family who has seen organ donation from both sides, the donor side and the recipient side. In June 1987, Ter and Julaine's oldest son of four children was in an accident that caused his death three days later. He was eighteen, had just completed his first year of college and was working at a summer job on a hydro-dam north of Yellowknife. His whole life was ahead of him. This was a very difficult time, but we knew that Wade wanted to donate his organs because he had distributed organ donation cards to fellow hockey players. Also the last time Ter saw him before his accident Wade had his father sign a donor card. It was fresh in our minds when he died that this was his wish.

Little did we know then that in 2006 Julaine would receive a heart so that she could live. She was diagnosed with Cardiomyopathy in 1992 and gradually after that her health deteriorated. From time to time she was taken to hospital where lasix and oxygen were given to relieve the congestive heart failure symptoms of fluid on the lungs that caused coughing and shortness of breath. When it was evident that a heart transplant was necessary, Julaine was on oxygen and daily doses of lasix at home. To make sure that Julaine was healthy enough to receive a new heart, she underwent a battery of tests at the University of Alberta Hospital. One of the first tests done was to check the pressure of the vessels in her lungs. The presure was found to be too high for her to successfully receive a new heart. She was hospitalized there and received IV medication to help lower the pulmonary pressures. The test was attempted a second time and again she failed. The medication was adjusted and the third try proved successful which meant that she was now on the transplant list almost a month later. About this time, Julaine was told that the chances of her getting a new heart was less than 1% because she had many antibodies that could reject her new heart. Amazingly, just at the time when she was criticaly ill, a donor was found. Following three months of intensive rehabilitation at the U of A Hospital and continued exercise at home, Julaine was gradually able to live an active healthy life.

The Hamer family belief that the system needs to be changed to make organ and tissue supply more available to those in need. This is the reason that Ter has undertaken the crusade. Individually, people need to talk to their families so that when the time comes for this serious decision to be made, families will know of the person's wishes. Some progress has been made through the government but there is still much to be done. On April 1, 2008 our ministers of health nationally, provincially and territorially have granted the Canadian Blood Services the mandate to implement a national voluntary data base registry so that the medical people across the country can access it at the appropriate times. This will take much cooperation between the many donor organizations that now exist in Canada. This costs money and time. Your support through letters to your ministers of health and their deputy ministers will encourage them to make this happen. The sooner that it can be done, the sooner fewer people will die.

Organ Statistics: At the end of 2007, 4000 Canadians were still waiting for an organ transplant; 146 died that year while waiting and there were 1040 organ donors. Clearly there is a gap to address in increasing donation so that more people receive a life saving transplant, in a safe, high quality health care system.
Canada has something in the area of 14 donors for every million population. The Americans have at least 50% better results that we do, and the Europeans, whose success in this area approaches triple ours.