The first ever Coastal Clinic Challenge is complete. Medical clinics along the Sunshine Coast from Gibsons to Pender Harbour all participated in the inaugural Waiting Room Challenge to see how many patients and staff could update their wishes in regards to organ donation with the BC Transplant Registry.
Lung transplant recipient Mike Gojevic is one of 35 transplant recipients on the Coast, and a volunteer with BC Transplant. He travelled to all the clinics to pick up the final forms and completed the count with project lead Dr. Paul Dhillon. During the one-month challenge, over 221 forms were completed and collected, with the Cowrie Street Clinic submitting the most forms. A close second place finish was between the Upstream Clinic and Gibsons Clinic, with Upstream coming out just ahead in the final count.
“It was great to see all the clinics and patients up and down the Coast participating in this challenge. More than just the numbers of the forms we collected in person is the awareness that we were able to generate along the Coast about making your wishes known in terms of organ donation. As someone who is alive today thanks to an organ donor, I am so thankful to everyone and every clinic that participated this year,” Gojevic said.
This challenge project was supported by a grant from the Rural Coordination Centre of BC and now the details will be reviewed and improvements made with it becoming an annual event with possible expansion across the province.
“This was a great chance to engage the communities of physicians and medical office staff along with their patients all along the Coast. I was so happy to have all the clinics jump on board and participate in the program. We know that some people also signed up and made their wishes known online so the ripple effect from this challenge will hopefully save a few lives down the road,” Dhillon said.
Since the first mini-trial of the concept of patients updating their organ donation status at the Cowrie Street Clinic in late 2018, over 300 people have completed the BC Organ Donation Registry form. If people missed the challenge this year and want to update their status, they can do so at register.transplant.bc.ca.
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