Cynthia Isenor leads impressive increases in organ and tissue donation across Atlantic Canada

The organ and tissue donation and transplantation programs at Nova Scotia Health are seeing incredible gains in both interest and donation in large part due to an increased emphasis on collaboration and communication with its partners.

Cynthia Isenor is the senior director of clinical networks for Nova Scotia Health. She said taking a deep dive into how the system works has really paid dividends.

“We have focused a lot on the process for making referrals, which increases the number of successful calls,” she said. “We have done a lot of work on medical suitability too. In the last two years it has helped support a more robust intake process and allows all teams to work together to save more lives.”

The Multi-Organ Transplant Program (MOTP) provides service delivery to patients from across the Atlantic provinces. This means patients come to Halifax for their transplant, while the Legacy of Life organ donation program and the Regional Tissue Bank provide deceased donation service delivery primarily to Nova Scotians.

The overall numbers for all three programs are impressive. Comparing 2023 to 2024 the programs have seen:

• 24 per cent increase in number of patients medically eligible for organ donation (from 37 to 46)
• 27 per cent increase in number of organ donors (from 29 to 37)
• 80 per cent increase in liver transplants (from 23 to 41)
• 21 per cent increase in kidney transplants (from 116 to 140)
• 43 per cent increase in referrals for tissue donation (from 595 to 852)
• 31 per cent increase in tissue donations (from 112 to 147)

Cynthia said engaging with healthcare professionals from across the province strengthened an overall sense of ownership and pride in the program, which in turn resulted in increased efforts to boost donations. There has also been an increased engagement among all Atlantic provinces and their respective organ procurement programs, which has resulted in higher deceased organ donation and transplantation within the region.

“Bringing leaders together and making those connections has been beneficial,” Cynthia said. “Streamlining some of the work and starting conversations within the province and our entire region will help all Atlantic Canadians.”

Cynthia said donation and transplant teams have performed intensive internal education with healthcare teams and made improvements on the steps followed to examine every organ for medical suitability.

“This has helped our healthcare teams realize when they need to make a call to us – and make that identification referral call earlier – helping the donation teams to confirm when a person may be able to help others through organ and tissue donation,” Cynthia said.

In 2021, Nova Scotia became a leader in North America by legislating presumed consent, which means all Nova Scotians medically eligible to donate are presumed to have consented to organ and tissue donation, unless they declare their objection through the ‘opt out’ registry or through a conversation with their families. Supporters of the legislation considered the move a life-saving change, exemplifying residents’ sense of compassion and giving. 

Cynthia said the renewed focus on improving the donation program “shows we are committed to improving access to transplantation, supporting individuals and their families during the donation process and are hoping that the wait (to receive an organ or tissue donation) should not be as long as it once was.”

Photo of senior director of clinical networks for Nova Scotia Health, Cynthia Isenor,