WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) - Film director Peter Jackson called on fellow New Zealanders to donate their kidneys, livers and hearts to those in need.
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Jackson told New Zealand Woman's Weekly magazine, which hit newsstands Tuesday, he was appalled to discover people were dying because New Zealanders are failing to donate healthy organs.
Organ donation is a lifesaving gift which costs nothing, said the director of "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring."
"It's not until you're facing heart disease or liver failure that you realize how bleak the prospects are here for people who are critically ill," he says in the article.
"We have the skills here, the hospitals and the surgeons. What we lack is a population willing to give," he added.
Health Ministry figures show New Zealand has one of the lowest organ donation rates in the developed world. Since 1998, 15 people have died because they did not receive a liver transplant.
His comments were inspired by the plight of 11-month-old Katie Tookey, who suffers from biliary atresia, a rare condition that blocks the liver's ducts, causing permanent deterioration.
Her father, Andy Tookey, said the condition means that at some point in the next five years Katie will need a liver transplant.
"At the current rates you're left wondering if there will be a liver available when the time rolls around ... It's heartbreaking," he said.
Jackson, in Britain working on the second movie in the "Rings" trilogy, could not be immediately contacted.
Health professionals have welcomed the involvement of the high-profile Jackson in the campaign to increase organ donation rates.