| Back to Main Page ORGAN TRANSPLANTS from the October 2002 issue of The Lantern The Lib-Dems, like eager puppies with a bone, would like to follow the lead of Spain, and in their annual conference, wish to introduce a move to require people to carry an �Opt-out� card, if they do not wish their vital organs to be removed for transplantation purposes: otherwise, victims of accidents are fair game for the successors of Burke and Hare. Perhaps truth is emerging at last, and The Times newspaper is giving a fair airing of different points of view. Here, we quote only those opposed. �No. the law on organ donation should not presume consent. This would amount to assault of the gravest kind. This is especially the case when lies are being told about brain-stem death being the same as death. While the heart is still beating, and the blood circulating, the patient is not dead, and may still be capable of feeling pain and distress, although unable to communicate this. Organs deteriorate very rapidly after death, and the transplant team, wanting the organs as fresh as possible, may be killing one patient in order to save the life of another�. �Donating organs is a gift, not an obligation. By all means remove the right of relatives or carers to override a patient�s documented wish to be a donor*. But encouraging doctors to view all patients as a source of spare parts could gravely undermine trust in the medical profession. After Alder Hey, the priority is to restore public confidence. Some doctors claim that the tests for brain-stem death, the pre-condition for organ donation, actually precipitate the condition. This concern needs public debate. Organs are often removed without general anaesthesia, despite the patient�s heart and lungs still working. Many people fear that this practice may cause serious suffering. Making organ removal under general anaesthetic mandatory would alleviate this understandable worry�. * (But Dr. David Evans, former Consultant Cardiologist at Papworth and Addenbrooke�s Hospitals, comments that it is the relatives who see the patient pink, warm, and apparently living � although pronounced �dead�, whereas the victim, when signing the consent card, assumed that he would be well-and-truly dead). �Odd that I.S. (previous correspondent) thinks that it is from �corpses� that donor organs are extracted. (This writer had suggested that if people were paid for their organs, it would be the end of the donor shortfall). A heart or liver taken from a dead body would, of course, be of no use to anyone. Donor organs are cut from live bodies on life-support systems, which die only when the system is switched off upon completion of surgery. When there is a law in place that forbids organ removal except under full anaesthetic, as called for by �Anaesthesia� (the journal of the Royal College of Anaesthetists, in August 2000), well-informed individuals like myself might conceivably permit the �harvesting� of our organs. Before that � over our dead bodies�. And the reply:- �The legislation called for (in this letter) to forbid organ removal except under full anaesthesia exists � but not for him. The Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 states that �An animal shall be regarded as continuing to live until the permanent cessation of circulation or destruction of its brain�, and under the Protection of Animals (Anaesthetics) Act 1954, 1 (1), �Any operation performed on any animal without the use of an anaesthetic�.shall be deemed to be performed without due care and humanity�. Animals, as so often, seem to get the better deal�. Today�s Anaesthetist had commented:- �Despite the best efforts of some extremely eminent people, no-one yet knows how or where consciousness is generated, and we should be honest enough to admit it. UK transplant practice relies on a crude, simplistic and totally discredited theory of consciousness, which is more than half a century old� There is, of course, a very sound POLITICAL argument against anaesthetising organ donors. By giving an anaesthetic, we are conceding the point that the patient may be � in some sense � still alive. We are therefore withholding anaesthetics from organ donors to make a political point. Our point; their lives�. Are we to get any news of the progress of the Chinese girl, injured in the Potters Bar rail crash, and pronounced �brain dead�, but taken home by her family, and now having regained consciousness? How very thoughtless of her to have caused such embarrassment to the experts here! Dr Evans has sent this letter to the Cambridge Evening News: I have just received, with my Electoral Registration form, a letter from our Mayor asking me to register as an organ donor by signing the standard NHS Organ Donor Register form enclosed. That form has gone straight into the waste bin, of course, because I know what state I would be in if my heart, liver, lungs etc. were removed under that offer. Readers of The Times (see Letters 20th and 27th August) also understand that organs for transplantation are nowadays removed from living bodies in which some brain function persists - and that some anaesthetists are not convinced that donors cannot feel pain during those sometimes prolonged procedures. But I am concerned that the wording on the Donor Register form - �I request that after my death any part of my body (or as specified) may be used for the treatment of others� - may mislead some generous-minded citizens without specialised knowledge into thinking that they will be really dead before their organs are removed. I feel sure that our Mayor would not wish anyone to register under that misapprehension. An offer made on the basis of so serious a misunderstanding of the relevant facts could not be considered valid. It might, indeed, be argued that the wording on the form constitutes active deception. Noting your newspaper�s support for the Mayor�s approach (Frances Evans and Opinion, September 2nd), may I suggest that you publish a clear and unambiguous description of the state of the organ donor when his organs are removed, while he is still on life-support with beating heart and functioning systems? The matter of fully informed consent is, quite rightly, a hot topic these days. You would not wish, I am sure, to risk the accusation that you persuaded readers to agree to something so serious as removal of their organs on the basis of anything less than complete understanding of what that procedure involves and the circumstances in which it may be permitted. From the Organ Transplants article in the October 2002 issue of The October, 2002 issue of The Lantern published from 17 Osborne Road, Palmers Green, London N13 5PT, UK. www.housewives.freeuk.com Back To Main Page |