Thank you

Our sincerest thank you to all the participants who attended the International and Québec Forums on donation and transplantation law and policy. Your enthusiastic participation went beyond all our expectations, with over 500 registrants from nearly 35 countries around the world. 

Both Forums served as a platform to present recommendations that can be used to improve the legislative and policy framework surrounding organ and tissue donation and transplantation. We are thankful to our working groups for their dedicated work in discussing and compiling these recommendations. 

As thrilled as we are with the quality of the recommendations, the thoughtful feedback and interactive panel discussions at the Forums, we know that the real work lies ahead of us. We will need to work hard to ensure that the comprehensive, innovative, and sometimes challenging recommendations from the chapter groups are transmitted to the people who control donation and transplant law and policy. We will also need to ensure that the integration of these recommendations is done in a coherent manner. Only then will our efforts truly bear fruit, ensuring that all donation opportunities will be pursued to allow more transplants to take place and more lives to be saved across the world.

Stay tuned for our next steps and feel free to share your feedback with us: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Lead Organizers

Mr. Louis Beaulieu

Chief Executive Officer, Transplant Québec, Montreal, Canada

Dr. Matthew Weiss

Scientific Director of the Forum & Medical Director - Organ Donation, Transplant Québec, Quebec, Canada

Dr. Mélanie Dieudé

Executive Director, The Canadian Donation and Transplantation Research Program (CDTRP), Université de Montréal, Montreal, Canada

Dr. Marcelo Cantarovich

President of The Transplantation Society
Transplant Québec and the CDTRP warmly thank The Transplantation Society and its president, Dr. Marcelo Cantarovitch, for their support as a Principal Partner of both Forums. This support in regards to the organization of the event as well as the scientific input contributed to the creation of a high quality scientific forum, and will allow for greater dissemination of the results to the international community.

Objective:

The goal of the International Forum is to create evidence informed expert consensus recommendations with the objective of improving organ and tissue donation and transplantation laws and policy. Though the focus is primarily on deceased organ donation, tissue donation and living donation will be addressed as well.

This is a Quebec and Canadian initiated event, but the objective is to create aspirational recommendations that can be adapted for use in donation and transplant systems around the world.

Structure:

The International Forum will take place over one and a half days from October 14 to 15, 2021. Colleagues from all regions of the world, including donation and transplantation focused researchers, clinicians, patient partners, and administrators will be present and joined by experts in law, social sciences, and bioethics. Together they will present their consensus recommendations that have been developed over the months preceding the Forum. These recommendations will represent an innovative body of work that could help guide any jurisdiction or region hoping to develop or improve their legislation and policies regarding organ and tissue donation and transplantation.

A second forum, Forum on the Future of Organ and Tissue Donation and Transplantation in Quebec, will immediately follow during the afternoon of October 15th. In light of the International Forum recommendations and discussions, participants from Quebec’s political and clinical domains will be joined by patient and family partners and members of the general public to begin the discussion on what to prioritize in the quest to improve the legislative and policy framework of Quebec.

Outputs:

The primary output will be a series of science manuscripts detailing the recommendations and the evidence base used to reach consensus.

The recommendations will also be distributed through presentations at scientific conferences, workshops, and reports in non-academic media.

Partners:

The Transplantation Society, the Canadian Society of Transplantation, Canadian Blood Services, and the International Society for Organ Donation and Procurement are all official partners who have contributed to the scientific content and will partner with the distribution of the recommendations.