Mom wants policy change for organ, tissue donors after gay son's death

When Liam Dee began receiving hospice care shortly after starting his nursing career, he knew the rare cancer that had ravaged his body meant his organs were too damaged to donate.

But the 26-year-old was grateful his tissues, including skin, corneas, tendons and bones, could still go to people who needed them.

However, his tissues were rejected when he died last November, said his mother Cindy Gates-Dee, who learned from reading her son's medical records that his "homosexual status," as noted on a screening form by a tissue specialist, meant he was declined as a high-risk donor because he'd had sex with another man in the last five years.

But neither she nor Dee's husband was asked any questions about Dee's lifestyle to determine the probability of high-risk behaviour that specialists believe lead to increased risk of HIV or hepatitis B and hepatitis C, Gates-Dee said from Aylesford, N.S.

"Huge assumptions were made. I know that my son would have been upset," said Gates-Dee, adding he'd registered as an organ donor long before 2021, when Nova Scotia became the first province where residents are presumed to agree to donate their organs and tissue when they die, unless they opt out of the program.

"It is obvious that Liam had been discriminated against," she said.

Her mission now is to file a case with the Canadian Human Rights Commission so others are not stigmatized, she said, and people on long wait lists for organs and tissues are not deprived of them.

"If he couldn't leave a legacy in helping other people with his tissues, then at least I could try to help change some of these policies."

Jacob MacDonald said he and Dee married in March 2022, but nine days later his husband was diagnosed with an aggressive liposarcoma, which formed a large tumour in his chest.

"Liam and I were in a monogamous relationship for more than four years," he said. "I take a lot of offence to the assumption that just because we were in a homosexual relationship that we were having high-risk sex," MacDonald said.

"I would like to see a change that would reflect more on people's behaviours rather than just their sexual identity. Because they're writing off an entire group of people that could be donors."

A spokesperson for Nova Scotia Health said men who have sex with men are asked about any high-risk behaviour over the last 12 months if they want to donate organs, in keeping with a national standard, even for those in a monogamous relationship.

But the abstinence requirement in that province is even longer when it comes to potential tissue donation from that group, Brendan Elliott said in an emailed response.

"We follow the American Association of Tissue Banks regulation, which includes a five-year timeline," he said of the province, which sends its tissue to the United States for processing.