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Renal Transplants

Kidney disease, treatment options & organ donation

Kidney Disease | The Wait List | BC Organ Donor Registry | Kidney Foundation
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Kidney Disease

Did you know that 1 in 10 Canadians has kidney disease?

 

Because there are often no symptoms until kidney disease is quite advanced, many people aren’t aware that they have the disease until they’ve already lost most of their kidney function.

 

That’s why it’s so important to know the risk factors for kidney disease and to talk to your doctor about checking your kidney function. Some people are at higher risk of kidney disease and should have their kidney function tested by their physician or health care provider, even if they feel well.
— Kidney Foundation

Are You at Risk?

Your kidneys perform important functions in your body. That's why you should take 10 minutes to answer these 10 questions. The answers will help you know if you should talk to your doctor about having your kidney function checked.

 

View the full-size infographic

 

Chronic kidney disease has surged to nearly 800 million cases and is now among the top causes of death worldwide. The condition is heavily linked to diabetes, hypertension, and obesity, and often goes unnoticed until late stages. Many countries lack access to dialysis and transplants, leaving millions without adequate care.
— ScienceDaily

Treatment Options

Initially, your renal team (doctor, nurse, dietitian, social worker) will make some changes to your lifestyle including changes to your diet to reduce the workload on your kidneys and to prolong the period before dialyses becomes necessary. At this time you'll be informed about your treatment options and be able to choose between the options that are best for you.

Dialysis

The initial treatment is most likely to be dialysis. There are two main types:

• hemodialysis (usually 4–5 hours three times a week); or
• peritoneal dialysis (usually four times a day, every day).

Nearly 75 percent of all dialysis patients receive in-centre treatment (the most expensive kind) and the financial burden can be significant:

Living with kidney disease can create significant financial challenges for patients and their families. From medication costs and travel expenses to lost income and caregiving responsibilities, the economic impact can be substantial and long-lasting.

 

These challenges are exacerbated by inequitable government support that varies widely across provinces and territories, particularly for those requiring dialysis or a kidney transplant, leaving patients and families with additional financial burdens based on where they live.
— Kidney Foundation of Canada

You will need to continue dialysis for the rest of your life or until you have a kidney transplant. Average life expectancy on dialysis is 5–10 years but each person's experience is different.

Transplant

A kidney transplant is currently the best form of treatment for most people. It is the treatment that allows the closest to normal lifestyle. Not everyone is a candidate. You must meet the criteria to get onto the transplant waiting list and while on the waiting list your body has to endure the rigors of dialysis.

 

There are a number of factors that are considered when determining if a person is suitable for transplant and who receives the organs that become available. There are two main categories of transplant:

1. transplant from a living donor; or
2. transplant from a person who has died suddenly.

Why I gave my kidney to a stranger is Dylan Matthews' story.

Non-dialysis Supportive Care

If you decide to let the disease run its natural course, non-dialysis supportive care provides comfort care, both physical and emotional.

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The Transplant Wait List

Many people are waiting for Organ Transplants and some will die waiting (nearly a third of the people who died while waiting for organs were waiting for a kidney).

Eva Markvoort (1984–2010) — pictured in the BC Transplant graphic below — was a remarkable woman who lost her battle with cystic fibrosis. She is featured in 65_RedRoses, a film that looks at the human side of waiting for a transplant.

It only takes 2 minutes online

Transplantation Improves Quality of Life

A kidney transplant is a treatment just like dialysis, but offers greater freedom (albeit with issues related to drug interactions with side effects like reduced bone density and higher risks for certain cancers).

While a kidney transplant is not a cure, it makes a massive difference in people's quality of life. Transplantation provides the best quality of life for a renal patient (and often the only treatment option for other diseases).

Up to 8 Lives Improved

One organ donor can save up to 8 lives. Tissue and eye donors can improve the lives of up to 75 more. Quality of life and life expectancy are often better for people with severe chronic kidney disease if they have a kidney transplant than if they're treated with dialysis.
— Health Canada

An organ transplant brings improvements in quality of life to the recipient. It ends the uncertainty of not knowing when the call from the transplant list will come and lets you get on with living your life.

Donor Legacy: The Gift of Life

Families of donors should take comfort in the knowledge that the selfless giving nature of your loved one continues to live on in the improved well-being of the organ recipients. It truly is a gift of life.

Transplantation Makes Economic Sense

Transplants are cost-effective and the success rate is excellent.

Dialysis is the most common treatment for kidney failure and costs the health care system between $56,000 and $107,000 per patient per year. The cost of a kidney transplant, including donor costs, is approximately $100,000 initially, decreasing to $20,000 in care costs for year two and decreasing annually each year thereafter.
— Kidney Foundation of Canada

Chronic kidney disease costs the health care system approximately $40 billion every year.

The success rate for a kidney transplant from a living donor is 90–95% after one year and the transplanted kidney lasts 15 to 20 years on average. For transplants from a deceased donor, the success rate is also high: 85–90% of these kidneys are working well after one year and will last on average from 10 to 15 years.
— Kidney Foundation of Canada

These cost savings don't take into account the tremendous improvement in quality of life for the recipient.

These are averages. My kidney transplant was in 1996 and it is still working. My wife's first transplant was in 1979, her second in 2019 (after another two years on dialysis). Read our story…

Long Waiting List

The wait for a transplant can be very long and a very small portion of those registered end up as donors.

View the full-size infographic

 

Transplantation Reduces Demand for Scarce Dialysis Facilities

Hemodialysis demand in Victoria has been increasing. Transplantation helps to ease the demand for these facilities and greatly improve the quality of life for the patients that receive a transplant.

What Can I Do?

Register • Tell Your Family • Be Inspired

You Can Be a Part of the Solution

• Consider living organ donation.
• Join the Kidney Paired Donation Program Registry. Learn more: kidney.ca/Organ-Donor-Programs
• Register your intention to donate your organs through your provincial donor registry. Find out more: kidney.ca/Register
• Speak to your family and loved ones to make sure they know and honour your wishes.
• Employers can remove a barrier to living donation via the Living Donor Circle of Excellence program: kidney.ca/Living-Donor-Circle-of-Excellence
• Learn more about kidney health and organ donation at kidney.ca

Support The Kidney Foundation

• Financially support the Kidney Foundation of Canada
  • The Kidney Foundation of Canada has raised more than $138 million to support life-saving kidney research across Canada.
  • The Kidney Foundation funded the development of Peritoneal Dialysis techniques.
  • The Kidney Foundation funded clinical trials of EPO (erythropoietin, a hormone used to enhance the production of red blood cells in kidney patients to fight anaemia).
• Volunteer for the Kidney Foundation:
  • The Kidney Foundation has a chapters and community groups.
  • Healthy volunteers are needed for a variety of tasks.
• Have a volunteer speak to your service club, school, employee group, etc.
  • There are a number of people trained to speak about this issue (I am no longer active in this role).
  • These volunteers are transplant recipients, living donors, family members and others that have a keen interest in reducing the wait lists in British Columbia.

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The BC Organ Donor Registry

In 1997 British Columbia became the first province in Canada to establish an Organ Donor Registry (ODR), replacing all previous forms of consent.

Register & Tell Your Family

If you become eligible as a donor (much less likely than requiring a transplant) it will be an incredibly emotional time for your family. You can help them by sharing your wishes. Organ donation FAQs will answer many of your questions (and theirs).

Organ Donors

Anyone who is healthy can be a living donor. The age of consent to be a living donor varies from 16–19 depending on the province in which you live. They must be in good general health with no evidence of significant high blood pressure, diabetes, cancer, kidney disease, heart disease or hepatitis.
— Kidney Foundation of Canada

Only 28% Registered

Every year, dozens of patients die waiting for organ transplants in BC. And while 90% of people in our province agree with organ donation, only about 28% register their decision. Raising awareness and sharing information about the need for organs is one way we can help ensure people get the life-saving transplants they need.
— BC Transplant Society

Your Registration Makes a Difference

Many British Columbians are alive today because of an organ transplant. See BC Transplant Society's 2025 Fact Sheet (PDF).

1. Your registration in BC Transplant's Organ Donor Registry (register.transplant.bc.ca) is an official record of your decision on organ donation. If you aren't registered, your family will decide for you.
2. You are more likely to need a transplant than you are to be an organ donor.
3. Only about 1–2% of deaths in hospital occur in a way that allows for organs to be donated.
4. To become an organ donor, a person must be in a hospital Intensive Care Unit and be on a ventilator.
5. Donation is considered only after all life-saving efforts are made and it's certain a person will not survive.
6. Two doctors, not involved in transplant, must declare death before organ donation can proceed.
7. You may still be able to donate if you have a medical condition. Register your decision and the specialists will determine if you can.
8. There is no age limit to register for organ donation. The oldest organ donor in Canada was 92 years old.
9. You only need to register once.
10. Once you've registered your decision, take the time to talk to your loved ones about your wishes.
11. Not sure if you're registered? Verify online at register.transplant.bc.ca/verification with your Personal Health Number.

The Statistics

Organ donor and transplant statistics (as of April 9, 2026):

• 1,629,834 people are signed up with the Organ Donor Registry in BC.
• There are 628 people on the waiting lists in BC. Wait times vary depending upon your blood type.
• There have been 113 transplants so far in 2026.
• Totals: 575 in 2025 481 in 2024, 563 in 2023, 465 in 2022, 529 in 2021, 451 in 2020, 480 in 2019, 502 in 2018, 479 in 2017.
• 6,639 patients are being followed post-transplant.

Note: The pandemic impacted clinical capacity and surgery dates, which contributed to fewer living kidney donor transplants in 2020, 2021 and 2022.

View the full-size infographic

 

People Will Die Waiting For Transplants

About a third will die while on the waiting list. When you consider that only 1–2% of all deaths in BC will result in organ donation, there is a critical need to improve registration. If everyone in BC was registered there would be a significant reduction in the waiting list.

Despite increasing awareness of the importance of organ donation, the need for life-saving organ transplants in Canada remains high. The Canadian Organ Replacement Register (CORR) summary statistics provide a snapshot of organ transplants, wait-lists and donors in Canada in 2024, using aggregate-level data from Canada’s 12 organ donation organizations.
— Canadian Institute for Health Information. Summary statistics on organ transplants, wait-lists and donors. Accessed April 11, 2026.

Key findings include:

• A total of 3,212 organ transplants were performed in Canada in 2024; 82% of transplants used deceased donor organs and 18% used living donor organs.
  • Of the organs from living donors, 51% were from related donors while 49% were from unrelated donors.
  • Of the total transplants, 58% were kidney, 20% liver, 13% lung, 5% heart, 2% pancreas and 2% combination transplants.
  • 5% of all transplants that occurred in 2024 used organs donated following medical assistance in dying (MAID).
• Of the 894 deceased donors in 2024, 64% donated following neurological determination of death, 29% donated following death determination by circulatory criteria (non-MAID) and 7% donated following MAID.
• As of December 31, 2024, a total of 4,044 Canadians were on wait-lists to receive a transplant; 66% were active on wait-lists and 34% were on hold for a short period of time.
• In 2024, a total of 691 Canadians were removed from the organ transplant wait-lists; of these, 31% had died while waiting.

Are You Registered?

Register yourself and your family as organ donors
It only takes 2 minutes online.
Register • Tell Your Family • Be Inspired

You can verify your decision online. For more information contact the British Columbia Transplant Society.

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The Kidney Foundation of Canada

The Kidney Foundation of Canada focuses on three areas:

1. Research — finding effective treatments for kidney disease. About half the research dollars spent on kidney disease research in Canada was funded by the Kidney Foundation. Governments provide basic health care but don't fund the necessary research.
2. Public Education — aimed at improving the number of organ donors and reducing the long waiting lists.
3. Patient Services — such as funding the production and distribution of the binder Living with Kidney Disease. This manual is used to inform newly diagnosed patients and their families about the types of renal (kidney) disease, the various forms of treatment available, renal diets and the process of learning to live with a serious disease.

Kidney Car Program

Have an Unwanted Vehicle?

Donate your car, truck or SUV to Kidney Car. You'll get a fast, FREE and friendly tow and a valuable tax receipt. Learn more about the Kidney Car program.

When you make your car a Kidney Car, it will improve the lives of individuals living with kidney disease through funding community education, peer support groups and even medical research. We take vehicles of any age or condition!

Be a Kidney Can Hero

Kidney Cans donations support local kidney patients and their families.

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Learning More

Those on the transplant list, transplant recipients and living donors would like to encourage the conversation about the massive need to improve the rate of donor registration.

For more information on organ donation and transplantation visit:

• BC Transplant Society.
• The Kidney Foundation of Canada.
• Donating a kidney (HealthLink BC).
• 65_RedRoses is a film about Eva Markvoort's (1984–2010) battle with cystic fibrosis and wait for a double-lung transplant.

Kidney TV

Watch Kidney BCY-TV. This YouTube channel is all about kidney disease and those affected by the disease. The Kidney Foundation BC & Yukon branch created and produce these videos as awareness and educational pieces.

I recommend Episode #24, Get the Scoop…On Organ Donation, to learn more about organ donation and transplantation, including interviews with the support staff in these programs.

Learn More

Want to know more about organ donation in Canada?

The staff and volunteers at the BC Transplant Society and the Kidney Foundation of Canada can provide more information or connect you with someone willing to talk about transplantation.

Research Resources

Consumer Medical Resources has more information about kidney disease and organ donation & transplantation.

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