A LEADING medical ethics body wants the NHS to pay for the funerals of organ donors in an effort to help tackle the shortage of donations in the UK.Hugh Whittall, UK director of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, dismissed suggestions that covering the cost of funeral expenses for those who sign the donor register was a way of getting around the legal ban on selling organs.
He told The Scotsman that the move would be a thank-you for an "altruistic act".
Mr Whittall claimed that covering the cost of funerals would provide an "extra prompt" to "drive up" the number of organ donors, which last year was just 67 in Scotland - a rate of 13 donors per million of population.
They think they have a problem?
Last year (2006) there were just 25 organ donors in New Zealand, down from an average of 40 donors a year prior to 2005. At 40 donors a year we were at the bottom of developed countries for the number of donors we have. Now with just 6 donors per million of population we are between Iceland and Mexico for our donation rates.
I have impressed on my family more than once that, in the event of death, if I have anything useable, they must do everything they can to ensure it is made available.
If you have 'donor' on your Driver's Licence make sure you convey the same sentiments to yours.
3 comments:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but many human organs are only useful if taken from a living body.
I know of a case in which a healthy young man had a motorcycle ('donorcycle') accident, and the doctors removed his still-breathing lungs, and wrote on his death certificate, 'lung failure' as cause of death.
When people are in intensive care after trauma or stroke and "irresversible cessation of all brain function" has occurred seems to be the main criteria.
http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:OPErelLrRGUJ:www.nhmrc.gov.au/_files_nhmrc/publications/attachments/e75.pdf+organ+donation+in+practice&hl=en&gl=nz&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEEShwFb9n28B2R0qDfecF5kDPhqPUf3k1CL4yI6d5bgTyHmL6ttENMk0ycsRPOv7ySp3WGlf-4iHwoUncdQ-PHIteu1K2qr525a0mdcWJOtRsQcVuPXZiz0VGsuFN4kdyGhFMJ7Kf&sig=AHIEtbRFzkGQTGxu3RotBPkx0ZmRxP37Qw
It should be quid-pro-quo. If you are not prepared to be a donor (for cultural, religious or just plain old not wanting to do it reasons) then you should be inelligible to receive a donated organ. Also, people who wilfully abuse their bodies should be ruled out - smokers, grossly fat people with diabetes who have liver and kidney failure. At my age I am not sure what parts of me are still usefull but whatever can be harvested would be harvested.
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