Chadwick Steve: Human Tissue Bill — Third Reading 
Chadwick Steve: Human Tissue Bill — Third Reading 
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Hon STEVE CHADWICK (Associate Minister of Health) 
: 
 I am pleased to come down to the Chamber to take a call on this Human Tissue Bill. It has a very interesting history. It began with a Law Commission report that prompted us about ways forward to care for human tissue. I acknowledge that we started it off really with Jackie Blue’s Organ Donation Bill which was discharged and then this Human Tissue Bill came into being. The Human Tissue Act is 44 years out of date and this bill is really needed today. 
I think we have become a little bit confused about some of the issues that we all find to be very very sensitive. In the past I used to be in charge of a service that linked very closely with intensive care and intensivists the collection of organs for organ donation and Auckland hospital. Never were the wishes of family overridden. But we were lucky; we were in a hospital that set up an environment that encouraged cultural participation with Te Whakaruruhau and the Hunga Manaaki Service walking alongside families. I knew the sensitivity of these issues and how that ought to be reflected in a bill. It was interesting when I was pursuing a member’s bill and went up to Auckland to talk over these issues with the intensivists and found that they were really aware that those issues could be addressed through the training and cultural awareness of all staff who need to deal with the retrieval and management of human tissue. I believe that this bill is really just setting up the framework for regulating the collection storage and use of human tissue and any health provider involved in this aspect of medical care which is a very sensitive one really needs to be well educated on the cultural issues. I remind the House too that those cultural issues are not the exclusive domain of Maori; they are also issues for Pakeha Indian or anybody when they are dealing with the care of the deceased and the retrieval of organs from the deceased. I want to cover off here that that is primarily what this bill is about. 
Organ Donation New Zealand is well established and it is run from Auckland. It looks after the retrieval of organs right throughout New Zealand and it is absolutely adamant that its role is about education and raising the community’s awareness. Although I know it is a sensitive issue for many families hopefully they will look at issues like the advanced directive or what the will of parents and family are if they were to meet with an untimely death. My family knows exactly what to do with my human tissue and what I would want to see if there was anything useful left there to use. It is an open discussion in our family. We are a bicultural family yet it is not an issue that has really spooked us at all. We have had the open discussions and I know how my family will look after my remains if something happened to me. Many families in the hospital setting when somebody comes and walks beside the family and explains along with clinicians about the intention and the purpose for human tissue retrieval and when they get time to reflect and are not pressured are usually quite happy to make a decision. No intensivists will move unless that environment has been set up for families. Those are the issues that intensivists take notice of. Intensivists told me as they told Judy Turner that they would never look at the motor vehicle licence and whether the person had ticked the donor box. Just because someone has signed the motor vehicle licence to say that he or she would like to be a human tissue donor it is not going to cloud their decisions on diving in to retrieve organs. I understand their reasons for not doing that. They want to provide the right clinical environment which supports families to make the right decision on behalf of their deceased loved ones. 
One of the underlying principles that I like about the Human Tissue Bill is that of informed consent. I believe we have to have a clinical environment in which we trust clinicians to deal sensitively with patients to bring out the issue with wider family about what informed consent really means. That means covering off how the tissue will be stored how it is collected and whether they can later have access to that tissue. I think New Zealand learnt a lot when we were all horrified by the infant hearts’ issue at Green Lane Hospital. We realised absolutely that there was no system around the collection and maintenance of those organs. That horrified us all. 
We have come a long way since that Green Lane Hospital infant hearts’ issue. The public discussion around both Jackie Blue’s bill and this Human Tissue Bill involving very very complex issues has been fantastic. We can now talk openly with families about what they think about this what they feel comfortable with and that is what is to be applauded. We now have that environment in the clinical setting but we need more discussions out in the community. 
This bill is consistent with the Code of Health and Disability Services Consumers’ Rights which is a very important document in every clinical setting so that patients know their code of rights and the bill does comply with that. I am pleased that my colleague Sue Moroney rounded off very carefully the issues that are dealt with in the Human Assisted Reproductive Technology Act because they should not be confused with this bill. 
This bill is very sound and I congratulate the Health Committee under the chairpersonship of Sue Kedgley. It has come up with a very sensible option and the bill will be very well received by New Zealanders.