Daniel Jacobs and Corey Eteveneaux were in a stable relationship for nearly two years before Corey died.

For four days Corey Eteveneaux​ lay in a Whangarei Hospital bed, his heart kept beating by life support.

Medical consensus was the 24-year-old could not survive injuries suffered in a February road crash.

Faced with an incomprehensible reality, Corey's mother and partner decided to offer his heart valves and corneas for donation – only to be told he wasn't suitable because he was a gay man.

Corey Eteveneaux died after being involved in a car crash. His mother Cherie was told she couldn't donate his tissue because he was gay.

The experience has left Corey's mother, Cherie Eteveneaux, confused and angry, and prompted calls from gay rights advocates for a rethink on who can donate tissue and blood in New Zealand.

Currently, men who have sex with other men are excluded from donating blood or tissue for 12 months, regardless of whether they have used a condom.

ROBERT STEVEN/STUFF Cherie Eteveneaux is calling for a rethink on who can donate tissue after her son was rejected as a donor because he was gay.

"I spoke with a woman from Organ Donation NZ and initially I thought she wanted to speak to me about Corey's tattoos and when the last time was he had work done," Eteveneaux said.

"Instead she told me they couldn't take Corey's heart valves or corneas because of his lifestyle. Eventually she said it was because he's a homosexual man."

Corey and his partner Daniel Jacobs, 29, had been in a loving relationship for nearly two years, and were tested when they began dating, Eteveneaux said.

ROBERT STEVEN/STUFF Corey Eteveneaux was described as a fit and healthy 24-year-old prior to his road crash.

She felt the tissue donation criteria discriminated against gay men.

"Corey was a fit, healthy young man and I thought his heart valves would have been snapped up. It just doesn't make sense. There are people who are suffering out there and we could have potentially helped them."

Daniel Jacobs said said it was an especially upsetting experience to go through at a time when he was coming to terms with losing his partner.

Even the medical staff at the hospital appeared to be caught unaware of the 12 month stand down period for gay donors, he said. "They put us through all these questions. We were under a lot of stress at the time, and later to be told that we can't go through with it, it was disheartening.

"I can't see why we as homosexual men need to be discriminated against for what we do behind closed doors. We're still humans, we're no different to any people walking down the street.

"I know Corey would have loved to have helped someone, but some poor family has lost out."

RainbowYouth executive director Frances Arns said rules excluding gay men from donating tissue were outdated. A 12-month stand down period for men who had sex with other men was "ridiculous".

"Within two to three months you can tell that you've got HIV. It just kind of signals that this is driven by homophobia," she said.

"Remove the reference to gender and sexuality. If you've have unprotected sex in the last three months and you're not sure what your status is, then you shouldn't really donate."

Organ Donation NZ donor co-ordinator Janice Langlands said criteria for tissue donation were set by tissue banks.

Those criteria were stricter than the guidelines around organ donation because it was considered to be life-enhancing rather than life-saving. The criteria for tissue donation are similar to blood donation.

The clinical guidelines for tissue donation state there must be no discrimination against potential recipients on the basis of sexual orientation – but authorise discrimination against those who have gay male sex. By contrast, gay men are allowed to donate organs.

As part of the tissue donation process, a questionnaire is filled out with the family of potential donors.

Eteveneaux said she had no input into Corey's questionnaire.

Hospital staff would have guessed Corey was gay because his partner was present at his bedside, she said.

"You really are relying on people's honesty and what the family may or may not know about their loved one. If Corey's partner Daniel hadn't been at the hospital, would they have asked me if he was a homosexual?"

Dr Richard Charlewood, New Zealand Blood Service's tissue bank medical director, said the exclusion criteria did not target gay men but were about excluding those involved in high-risk activities.

People engaged in sex work, or who had sex with people from countries where HIV is prevalent within heterosexual communities, are also excluded from donating tissue or blood for 12 months.

Charlewood said HIV infection was predominantly within two groups in New Zealand: intravenous drug users and men who had sex with men. "When HIV was first identified, the single biggest risk reduction was achieved by targeting high risk behaviour, far more so than testing," he argued.

Despite state of the art technology, a "window period" exists when testing may not be able to detect HIV in a person during the early stages of the disease.

Previously, men engaged in sex with other men couldn't donate tissue or blood for 10 years. That exclusion period was lowered to five years in 2008 following an independent review, and then in 2014, to 12 months.

Charlewood said another review of the exclusion criteria was planned in the next few years.

"We do take into account that this is a sensitive issue," he said. "Where we do have the evidence and science behind it, we do cut these time frames down. If we do relax the criteria we have to be sure we're not increasing the risk to the recipient. First and foremost this is about the safety of the recipients who have no choice in it."

Eteveneaux claimed many medical staff didn't know an exclusion period applied to gay men wanting to be tissue donors.

According to figures from the New Zealand AIDS Foundation, about 3500 people live with the HIV virus in New Zealand.

In 2016, 244 people were diagnosed with HIV – the highest number since it first hit New Zealand. Of those 244 people, 164 identified as gay, bisexual or had sex with men.

Across the Tasman, experts aren't ruling out accepting organs from HIV positive patients in the near future. Speaking in November, Professor Greg Snell, who heads the lung transplant service at Melbourne's The Alfred hospital, said organs weren't currently accepted from patients with HIV but it could happen, because the condition is treatable.

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