Britain’s transplant authority said on Saturday that it was investigating several hundred thousand errors in its organ donor list stretching back about a decade.
The National Health Service Blood and Transplant Organization said a proportion of its 14 million-strong organ donor list has been affected by technical errors since 1999 — and that a small group of people may have had organs removed without proper authorization as a result.
The programming error meant that, for example, people who wanted to donate organs, such as their lungs or their skin, were incorrectly identified as people who wanted to donate their corneas or heart.
The Sunday Telegraph newspaper said the glitch affected about 800,000 people — 45 of whom have since died and donated organs. Just under half of those are thought to have made donations based on the erroneous data, the paper said.
An official at the National Health Service did not dispute the paper’s figures, although she did not confirm them either, saying an investigation was ongoing. She spoke anonymously because officials were still gathering information before contacting affected families.
She stressed that everyone on the register was a willing donor of some kind.
“There’s no suggestion that people have been signed up to the register who didn’t want to be there,” she said, adding that no data had been lost and the problem had since been contained.
“There’s no possibility of any incorrect data being used today,” she said.
The revelation comes at an awkward time for the government, which has been pushing to increase Britain’s rate of organ donation, one of the lowest in Europe. Officials have poured millions of pounds into an awareness campaign and floated the idea of automatically designating every person a donor unless they or their survivors opt out.
Currently, every Briton is automatically considered a non-donor unless they register as one or their family decides to donate their organs after death.
The glitch also comes atop a series of information technology mishaps, raising questions over the government’s ability to handle its citizens’ data. Officials have misplaced data on 3 million driving test candidates, 600,000 army applicants and 5,000 prison officers over the past few years.
Those were dwarfed by the loss, in 2007, of computer disks carrying information — including banking records — on nearly half the UK population.
The latest mistake came to light late last year when the Blood and Transplant Organization wrote to new donors thanking them for joining the register and outlining what they had agreed to donate.
Some respondents wrote back to complain that the information was wrong.
Joyce Robins, the co-director of patient watchdog group Patient Concern, said the transplant errors were “a disaster.”
“The trouble is that it happens so often. We’re constantly being told that our data is safe and it’s rubbish. Every time we’re told that it’ll all be tightened up, it’ll never happen again, and it never does,” she said.
BOMBARDMENT: Moscow sent more than 440 drones and 32 missiles, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, in ‘one of the most terrifying strikes’ on the capital in recent months A nighttime Russian missile and drone bombardment of Ukraine killed at least 15 people and injured 116 while they slept in their homes, local officials said yesterday, with the main barrage centering on the capital, Kyiv. Kyiv City Military Administration head Tymur Tkachenko said 14 people were killed and 99 were injured as explosions echoed across the city for hours during the night. The bombardment demolished a nine-story residential building, destroying dozens of apartments. Emergency workers were at the scene to rescue people from under the rubble. Russia flung more than 440 drones and 32 missiles at Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy
‘SHORTSIGHTED’: Using aid as leverage is punitive, would not be regarded well among Pacific Island nations and would further open the door for China, an academic said New Zealand has suspended millions of dollars in budget funding to the Cook Islands, it said yesterday, as the relationship between the two constitutionally linked countries continues to deteriorate amid the island group’s deepening ties with China. A spokesperson for New Zealand Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters said in a statement that New Zealand early this month decided to suspend payment of NZ$18.2 million (US$11 million) in core sector support funding for this year and next year as it “relies on a high trust bilateral relationship.” New Zealand and Australia have become increasingly cautious about China’s growing presence in the Pacific
Indonesia’s Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki yesterday erupted again with giant ash and smoke plumes after forcing evacuations of villages and flight cancelations, including to and from the resort island of Bali. Several eruptions sent ash up to 5km into the sky on Tuesday evening to yesterday afternoon. An eruption on Tuesday afternoon sent thick, gray clouds 10km into the sky that expanded into a mushroom-shaped ash cloud visible as much as 150km kilometers away. The eruption alert was raised on Tuesday to the highest level and the danger zone where people are recommended to leave was expanded to 8km from the crater. Officers also
ESPIONAGE: The British government’s decision on the proposed embassy hinges on the security of underground data cables, a former diplomat has said A US intervention over China’s proposed new embassy in London has thrown a potential resolution “up in the air,” campaigners have said, amid concerns over the site’s proximity to a sensitive hub of critical communication cables. The furor over a new “super-embassy” on the edge of London’s financial district was reignited last week when the White House said it was “deeply concerned” over potential Chinese access to “the sensitive communications of one of our closest allies.” The Dutch parliament has also raised concerns about Beijing’s ideal location of Royal Mint Court, on the edge of the City of London, which has so
RSS