Page 5123 - Week 12 - Thursday, 27 October 2011
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the ACT. The working group received many representations from intensive care-emergency medicine clinicians, organ and tissue donor coordinators, community-consumers and pastoral care-social work areas. It also held consultations with many key stakeholders in the ACT organ and tissue donation sector in developing the implementation plan for the ACT, who were also supportive of these proposed reforms.
I will now turn to the specific amendments in the bill. Firstly, I will turn to the amendments to part 1 of the Transplantation and Anatomy Act. The object of the amendments to part 1 is to improve the efficiency, effectiveness, timely delivery and quality of services in the organ and tissue donation sector in the ACT. The amendments seek to increase the number of designated officers who authorise the removal of organs and tissue from the body of a deceased person located in an ACT hospital for the purpose of transplantation to the body of a living person or for other therapeutic, medical or scientific purposes.
Part 1 of the Transplantation and Anatomy Act specifically covers the appointment of a doctor to be a designated officer in an ACT hospital. The amendments to part 1 of the act are required to allow the appointment of other health professionals as designated officers. This would increase the number, availability and accessibility of designated officers for the purpose of organ and tissue donation in the ACT.
The amendments are in line with the COAG endorsed national reform package for organ and tissue donation. In the light of considerable cross-border activity, the proposed amendments will also be consistent with the relevant corresponding legislation in New South Wales, namely, the Human Tissue Act 1983 (NSW).
I now turn to the amendments to part 3 of the act. The object of the amendments to part 3 of the act is to allow authorised, trained tissue retrievalists to retrieve all tissue—musculoskeletal, cardiovascular, eye and skin tissue—and not just eye tissue for the purpose of corneal transplantation. Section 31(2) of part 3 of the act covers the removal of eye tissue for the purpose of corneal transplantation. The amendments to part 3 of the act are required to allow authorised and trained tissue removalists to retrieve all tissue, not just eye tissue, in a timely manner.
These amendments will help bring the ACT requirements for tissue retrieval in line with the equivalent New South Wales Human Tissue Act 1983 and will also help to increase the retrieval rates of tissue for donation in the ACT. Essentially, the amendments will expand the role of existing tissue retrievalists and will not require the recruitment of additional retrievalists at this stage.
The amendments to part 3 of the act are in line with the COAG endorsed national reform package for organ and tissue donation. The result of these reforms will be increased organ and tissue donation and retrieval rates in the ACT—a much-needed continued reform of the organ and tissue donation sector in the ACT and for all ACT citizens who rely on the timely delivery of these services in the region. I commend the bill to the Assembly.
Debate (on motion by Mr Hanson) adjourned to the next sitting.
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