MOTIONS-Final-Booklet

MOTIONS UofT

2015 - 2016 Annual Report

Multi-Organ Transplant Insight Outreach and Networking Society

Celebrating novel outlooks in promoting organ donation

Contents

Sponsors & Partners MOTIONS sincerely appreciates the generous contributions of our sponsors. We wish to thank the following organizations for their monetary, material and logistical support this year.

Toronto Transplant Institute

MOTIONS

We also wish to thank the Trillium Gift of Life Network for their generous provision of materials and signage in support of our efforts.

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Sponsors and Partners

Year in Review Executive Message

Academic Engagement

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Public Engagement

Future Partners Reflections and Future Outlook

Members and Community

Partners

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Reached thousands of Ontarians

2015 - 2016 Report

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Year in Review

Hosted 20 new public outreach events

Engaged a dozen new community partners

Supported 30 other community events

Recognized in 5 publications

Reached thousands of Ontarians

Executive Message

Dear Colleagues,

It is my great pleasure to present you with this annual report summarizing the many novel initiatives

and undertakings conducted by MOTIONS this year.

Since our inception in September 2013, MOTIONS has sought to alleviate the crippling shortage of

transplantable organs in Ontario, as well as bring light to the many social stigmas and ethical dilemmas

surrounding transplantation. Previously, our efforts were focused on raising academic discourse and

encouraging scholarship in the areas of transplantation. Though this work is vital to effectuating meaningful

and lasting impact, it seemed incomplete on its own. Therefore, this year MOTIONS dramatically

augmented our mandate to include direct social and public outreach as central focus, alongside our

traditional academic roles.

In total, we hosted 20 Organ Donor Registration Drives with a dozen new community partners this

year, representing a 10 fold increase from last year. We further provided materials and expertise for up to

an additional 30 events across the province. We trust these efforts helped engage thousands of Ontarians

and bring light to their role in alleviating the organ wait-lists. We further continued our academic

engagement with our presence at several University events as well as our MOTIONS debate—where experts

and students again faced off to analyse alternate solutions for managing wait-lists.

In future, MOTIONS shall continue our dual mandate to raise both public and academic awareness

and with ever increasing membership and community partners, we hope to achieve lasting change for

Ontario’s patients.

Lastly, thank you to all of our sponsors, members, community partners and executives whose

tireless work made MOTIONS possible this year.

Sincerely,

Imindu Liyanage President 2015-2016 E-mail: [email protected]

MOTIONS

Academic Engagement

MOTIONS Debate MOTIONS hosted our annual debate tackling a complex ethical dilemma in the field of transplantation. This year we featured Dr. Daniel Buchman (UHN Bioethicist) and Andrea Norgate (UHN Pancreas Transplant Coordinator) along with students Roman Zyla (U of T Medical School) and Theodora Brunn (PhD. Candidate at Oxford University) who debated the virtues of employing prior lifestyle choice as a determinant of transplantation. Several members of the audience weighed in with their opinions and questions. We thank all those who participated for their support.

Engaging Students Broad engagement of students is crucial to MOTIONS’s mandate. To this end, Members of MOTIONS took advantage of a special invitation to the Toronto Science Expo hosted at the MARS building to introduce the field of Organ Donation and transplantation to gifted high school students in the city. Similarly we attended the University of Toronto’s Frost Week Fair to showcase MOTIONS as a student’s association. Both events illustrated a clear role for MOTIONS as an educating society to bring light to issues in organ donation in an otherwise untargeted group.

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2015 - 2016 Report

Public Outreach It is well established that organ donation rates are typically lower among certain faith-based communities. Therefore, in our effort to raise awareness about the lack of organs, MOTIONS decided to devote much of our initial efforts towards faith groups. We immediately noticed that there are great difficulties in accessing certain communities with unwavering religious persuasions precluding the possibility of organ donation. However, we were graciously welcomed by three distinct denominations of Christianity, as well as invitations for subsequent visits by Hindu, Muslim and Jewish places of worship. In many of these visits, we learned that faith was not the barrier to donation; rather procedural misconceptions, particularly about eligibility were the most common obstacles.

The Catholic Archdiocese of Toronto With several kind invitations from local clergy, MOTIONS was able to visit 3 churches within the Archdiocese on multiple occasions: St. Luke’s Church in Thornhill, St. Michael’s Cathedral and St. Paul’s Basilica in Toronto.

The Catholic church has long supported organ donation, and we were grateful to the many clergy and staff who participated in spreading the message of organ donation (particularly Fr. Smith of St. Paul’s). Despite this strong support, we noted many individuals did not know that organ donation was an option, let alone how to register. This invitation was therefore a valuable opportunity to start crucial conversations.

The Chinese Renal Association MOTIONS is grateful to have been afforded the opportunity to visit several nonsectarian community partners this year. We were especially pleased to partner with the Chinese Renal Association to visit Dragon City Mall in downtown Toronto. Events that reach out to Ontario’s many ethnic communities are crucial to establishing meaningful awareness, therefore we look forward to a continued partnership for years to come. We are also grateful for Dr. Istvan Mucsi for initiating this partnership.

MOTIONS

The Presbytery of East Toronto With the permission of the Presbytery of Canada, and with the support of the Rev. Alex Bisset - MOTIONS was able to visit the three largest churches in the Presbytery of East Toronto: St. Andrews, Trinity and Knox. Here too our welcome was exceptionally kind, and we again appreciate the many members of the churches who went out of their way to encourage organ donation. Yet, again it was procedural misconceptions that prevented many potential donors from registering. MOTIONS’s members were happy to clarify many of these questions —which many of us had been asked repeatedly. We look forward to a continued partnership with the Presbytery of Canada.

The Anglican Diocese of Toronto With a fortuitous invitation from the office of Archbishop Colin Johnson, MOTIONS was afforded the extraordinary opportunity to act as an exhibitor at the General Synod of the Diocese of Toronto. At this meeting, representatives of hundreds of churches across the province met to discuss ecclesiastical policy for the following two years. This presented a remarkable chance for MOTIONS to inform the delegates about deficiencies in organ donation and explain how they could assist to overcome it in their home communities. With the direct, and enthusiastic support of the Archbishop himself, 30 local churches were provided with materials and expertise to host their own registration drives. We thank the church for their invitation and look forward to attending further events.

His Grace, Archbishop Colin Johnson showing his support for organ donation .

MOTIONS eagerly awaits participating in the annual health fair at the Swami Narayan Hindu Temple Society as well as visiting the Jaffari Village Islamic Centre and the Sathya Sai Centre of Victoria Park in the months to come.

Future Partners

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2015 - 2016 Report

2015 - 2016 Report MOTIONS

Though MOTIONS reached many people this year, and though many paused and took interest at the information we presented, it is clear that a great many Ontarians have yet to be persuaded to become organ donors. In all our engagements, deep-seeded opposition to organ donation and transplantation was evident across ethnic and religious divides. For some of these individuals, it must be recognized that their beliefs are fundamental and not subject to persuasion. However, many more are either unaware that they must register to donate their organ or are operating under some misconception. For example, at one visit, a visitor to the MOTIONS display remarked that she was afraid that she would wake up while: “they were taking her organs”. Another remarked that they wanted to be buried with their family and feared that her entire body would be transplanted to other patients. Though both cases represent somewhat extreme examples, they highlight that Ontarians still contend with profound misunderstandings about transplantation. It must further be noted that this is not the fault of the public, but rather a failure of our health system to educate them correctly.

Should Ontario desire to eliminate waitlists permanently, and provide transplantation as the gold-standard therapy it is meant to be, then social and public education must be made a priority. Furthermore, groups like MOTIONS must venture into the community and start these conversations, otherwise social stigma and misconceptions will continue to thrive for years to come - all the while, Ontario organ waitlists continue to balloon out of control.

Reflections and Future Outlook

Thank you for your support...

MOTIONS Members Community Partners Derrick Chan

Martha Ghebreselassie

Michelle Liu

Monika Ashwin

Helen Liu

Franz Marie Gumabay

Dian Yu

Shanna Gu

Eleanor Warsmann

Asha Sardar

Nicholas Ng

Theodora Bruun

Christie Liang

Nikita Gupta

Anglican Diocese of Toronto

Catholic Archdiocese of Toronto

St. Luke’s Catholic Church

St. Michael’s Cathedral

St. Paul’s Basilica

The Presbytery of East Toronto

Trinity Church

Knox Church

St. Andrew’s Church

Chinese Renal Association,

The Kidney Foundation of Canada

Sathya Sai Center of Victoria Park

Swami Narayan Hindu Temple

Executives

Imindu Liyanage

Ashley Zhang

Linlei Ye

George Li

Elaine Lai