Organ Snatchers!
NZ has a very low rate of organ donations, and one reason for this is because the explicit wishes of the person who agrees to donate organs in case of their death, can be ignored if a family member objects.
I think this is wrong in principle, and wrong in practice, as the end result is people dying because organs are not available for transplant despite the explicit consent of the person.
Andy Tookey and National MP Jackie Blue proposed a law change so the decisions of the deceased person can not be over-ridden by a relative but sadly the Government rejected the law change.
So we are at one extreme. But in the UK, they have proposed, backed by PM Gordon Brown, going to the other extreme – every single person is deemed to consent to being an organ donor, unless they opt out. They also will still allow a family member to object also. Already Brown is being painted as an organ snatcher.
I think this goes too far, and again it doesn’t recognise the right of individuals to make their own informed choices as to what should happen in the event of their death.
The state should only presume consent for adults in extraordinary circumstances. In this modern age it is relatively easy to get people to make a decision themselves – NZ does it well through the driver licence system. But one shouldn’t take the absence of a response as consent.
So again my preferred position is no deemed consent, but no veto from relatives – the organs don’t belong to them – the wishes of the deceased should be respected.
January 15th, 2008 at 10:29 am
Will this be like the ‘ recycling’ of plastic .
Make it so easy to do and then you find they dont know what to do with the stuff
January 15th, 2008 at 10:41 am
Why not make a free market in organs. Families would be able to sell the organs of their deceased.
Not only would they save somebodies life, they would get paid for it.
This of course would sound icky to some, but imagine you are dying because you can’t get an organ for transplant. How would you feel about it then? Of course if you don’t like it, you can specify in your will that you don’t want to do it.
I would be willing to sell my organs after my death, knowing that they would not only help someone but would provide a windfall for my family. Then there is this point : my organs are mine. Why the hell should I *not* be able to do what I like with them?
January 15th, 2008 at 10:43 am
Well its different in that recycling reuses things that can cause a problem if we don’t recycle them, there isn’t any equivalent problem with not using organs that are available.
January 15th, 2008 at 10:52 am
The willingness to disregard the express wishes of the departed shows the hollowness of so many families professed respect for them.
I have a theory that there is a non coincidental correlation between the absence of respect for the individual’s expressed wishes on these issues (including the courts’ eagerness to rewrite will gifts) and declining respect for adult free will and responsibility in many other areas, including:
freedom to decide the terms of your employment contract being held to the terms you’ve agreed and the loss of sanctity and freedom of other contracts. In other words politicians’ delight in subsituting their judgment in general rules, for the choices of informed consenting adults has been paralelled by the eager assertion by judges of their right to over-ride the individual choices of those they think less wise than themselves, on a case by case basis.
January 15th, 2008 at 10:55 am
I have told my family in no uncertain terms that any organ of mine that is of any use to any person is to be donated if at all possible. I have specified it in my will. I have assured them that they run the risk of supernatural visitations should they ignore or over-ride my wishes!
January 15th, 2008 at 11:05 am
I agree with you David – I am a donor, an easy choice while first getting my licience. I had actually considered putting a clause in my will that if my relatives objected to my decision to donate, they would loose out of some/all inheritance but haven’t only to make my will simpler. I do not understand how a relative should be allowed to over-ride my choice and agree it should be backed by law and enforceable.
Equally, the idea that the government makes everyone a donor unless they opt out will be counter productive and think of the outrage if they get it wrong – someone has opted out and their organs are then used by mistake, easily done if the person has an accident without their opt out card on them and the opt out information is missed or error made – I see large compensation claims. Best to leave everything alone unless there is something (like DONOR on a driver’s licience) that specifically says yes. That way if a mistake is made, it is always on the side of caution.
If there is a law change promoted in this area, at the same time, specific directions on how/where the person is to be buried/cremated/etc. in their will should also get protection under the law – with real teeth – to stop the ongoing problem with ‘body snatching’ that’s recently been in the headlines.
January 15th, 2008 at 11:09 am
How about deemed consent with family over-ride and opt-out by the individual prior to death but NO family over-ride where there has been an “opt in”. I find it quite offensive that I can tick the donor box but the hospital still has to shag around getting my family’s consent (not that I doubt that it would be given).
January 15th, 2008 at 11:20 am
How about encouraging consent by paying donors’ estates for their contribution. If it increases the supply of organs and saves lives it’d be immoral not to do it.
And just in case you think its only the rich that would benefit, those payments can be publicly funded (or, alternatively, insured) like everything else in the health system.
January 15th, 2008 at 11:27 am
I disagree, David. Our priorities should be with the living and if a dead person’s organ can save a life we should take it regardless of the implied or expressed wishes of the deceased. It’s absurd that we let people die because of some misplaced reverence for those that no longer exist.
[DPF: If we ignore the explicit wish of a deceased (and remember they are often still technically alive when organs are taken) as to their organs, then is it not a slippery slope to hey that person is old and going to die soon, so lets give his organ to a young kid even if it knocks a couple of months off his life, because it will add 30 years to the kid's]
January 15th, 2008 at 11:27 am
‘Can you take your filthy hands off my organ please?’
“Sorry, I thought you weren’t using it.”
“That’s ok, understandable mistake……
Nice snatch though.”
“Thanks.”
Aye thenkyu
January 15th, 2008 at 11:30 am
Brown is being silly and so are relatives who go against a Donors wishes. Surprised you didnt mention the increasing trend in NZ of whole bodies snatched by relatives and buried somewhere else against the wishes usually of the remaining spouse!
January 15th, 2008 at 11:37 am
This just cries out for a link to the sketch from “The Meaning of Life” where two people (John Cleese and Graham Chapman) come to take Mr. Brown’s liver (played by Terry Gilliam, is the character name prescient?). When Mrs. Brown (Terry Jones) hestitates about donating her liver as well, The Man in Pink (Eric Idle) sings the Galaxy Song.
Link whore Grant suggests that this is not suitable for children: http://nz.youtube.com/watch?v=JJnFOTkV214
Monty Python – Live Organ Transplants
January 15th, 2008 at 11:39 am
Stephen is on the money yet again At the risk of repeating onesself why cant the pollies just butt out of the lives of those who live good lives and if they are going to interefer go after the citizens who refuse to follow the majorities way of living and societies rules
There are enough of these people to keep the pollies busy but no they wont do that because its easier to interfer with those of us who follow the law and pay our taxes.
We are the soft touches.
January 15th, 2008 at 11:40 am
Grant I saw it more as a potential scene from ‘Carry-On up the Organ’ featuring Kenneth Conner and Barbara Windsor.
January 15th, 2008 at 11:41 am
Oh and on the topic I agree with DPF that the will of the person must be paramount.
The same applies to estates although I concede there are cases where the Courts have a place but only where it can be shown the decision was not taken by a sane and rational mind.
January 15th, 2008 at 11:41 am
Dead people don’t get to vote, whereas living relatives do.
January 15th, 2008 at 11:42 am
Stephen isn’t on the money at all, there is no parallel here with this being indicative of people having less respect for the rights and wishes of others. Bollocks. You’re drawing a long bow to fit your own political perspective.
If someone doesn’t want their relative cut up I can understand that entirely, you don’t want an ugly corpse. It’s not because you have a general disregard for what others want.
BUT
It should still be up to the person who has died (obviously a decision made prior). And it should be legally binding.
January 15th, 2008 at 11:48 am
Its my body.
I and only I should be able to decide what I do with it, both in life and death (assuming that I don’t pass an obligation onto others in my passing).
January 15th, 2008 at 11:59 am
Indeed MikeE, this may well be a good time to use the slogan
“Keep your laws off my body”.
I do however think that it should be obligatory to recognise a person’s wishes.
January 15th, 2008 at 12:05 pm
Good observation Stephen. You’re bang on. It’s very hard for the left to stop meddling in other peoples affairs. God forbid people can make their own decisions and have them respected by others.
This seems to be the direction NZ is heading. We really should let the government decide for us. After all they do know best.
January 15th, 2008 at 12:10 pm
We have talked about this with our kids. Heaven forbid anything happens to them but whatever can be harvested from them or us is there for the taking.
Personally, i would go further. I would say that if you have any objection to being a donor, you are not elligible for donated parts yourself.
January 15th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
Or, you can just tick ‘organ donor’ on your license, and sit down with your relatives for 5 minutes, and explain to them that you feel organ donations are very important and you hope they will respect your wishes.
I think it would be very sad if the relatives of someone who had died were told they had no right to stop parts of the body being taken – if the idea of organs being taken upsets them then they should be respected too – society shouldn’t have a law giving us the right to make the loss of a loved one any more upsetting for them.
The last thing I would want to see would be an organ market where money changed hands. Imagine someone dying because the only available liver that week was yours, and the patient and his/her family couldn’t afford it because your second son wanted $350,000 or no deal.
January 15th, 2008 at 12:24 pm
(Clarification: That’s to say, I sure DON’T want to see an organ market!!!)
January 15th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
gww: how do you manage to almost always have the first comment, and almost always have nothing useful to say? Are those two things correlated?
Most people on thinking about this issue might have something useful to say. So far as I can tell your first thought was “oh no, if we decide that people’s choice to donate should be respected, we might end up with too many organs donated.” Are you really as thick as you sound? It seems to me that it would be hard to actually be that thick, but I guess with IQ being a bell curve and all there must be someone filling out the left hand end of it.
I have a lot of sympathy for those who register as a donor moving further up the list than those who don’t. Obviously not all organs match all people, and some element of medical need would need to come into it so not being a donor wouldn’t mean you didn’t get an organ, but it would reduce your chances.
I also think that people who have had a transplant, and then knowingly put that transplanted organ at risk, should get pushed down the list. For example, somebody with a transplanted kidney who chose to engage in physical activities that were known to pose a risk to that kidney. Or someone I know personally who had a kidney transplant, then used enough drugs to destroy it and is now on the list for another transplant. Similar to the way that smokers who won’t quit get pushed down the list for a heart transplant.
And on sale of organs…philosophically I agree with it, but emotionally it feels a bit wrong. I guess RedBaiter would tell me I have been brainwashed by growing up in a socialist country. If paying for organs led to more being available, or if I needed an organ and one was available only by paying, then yeah, damn sure I am in favour of allowing payment. But some care would need to be taken with illicit organs – organ stealing (rare I know), and live donations of spare organs (one kidney is spare in most people…).
I’m hoping that stem cell therapy gets advanced enough over the next ten or so years that donors are only needed in rare cases where the stem cell therapy won’t work. It think the technology to grow an entire new organ is further away, but it might be possible to repair the old one by grafting in some stem cells/new tissue grown from stem cells, thereby restoring some or most function. So only if your old organ is destroyed would you need a transplant.
January 15th, 2008 at 12:55 pm
I wouldn’t mind the organ market so much, if organs were bought by Pharmac in the way that other supplies like drugs are. Maybe that shows me up as a dirty commie socialist bastard, but I worry about a public hospital patient being presented with an offer of a heart, with a bigger pricetag than a 6brdm house in Remuera, and being told “take it or leave it”, and having to decide if his/her life was really worth financially crippling the rest of the family for ever. Very, very ugly…
January 15th, 2008 at 1:01 pm
Well you lot that want the Gumint to wipe your arses and your noses can have them do so. As far as Im concerned the less I have to do with the Gumint and the less the Gumint has to do with me the better And the same gores for local Guminy .
For me Im prepared to pay a reasonable amount (20% of my gross income) for them to provide minimial services to me ( I dont have high expectations of them and that way they dont disappoint me)
January 15th, 2008 at 1:05 pm
RRM Oh I dont know An organ market could be interesting Mark Weldon at the NZX is the man Hes set up a carbon trading market with Mark Franklin ex Vector running that Im sure the 2 Marks would be happy to clip the ticket on the trade of hearts lungs livers even brains if they had any value.
These guys are experts at ‘adding value’ so body parts wont be an issue.
January 15th, 2008 at 1:33 pm
I wouldn’t mind the organ market so much, if organs were bought by Pharmac in the way that other supplies like drugs are. Maybe that shows me up as a dirty commie socialist bastard, but I worry about a public hospital patient being presented with an offer of a heart, with a bigger pricetag than a 6brdm house in Remuera, and being told “take it or leave it”, and having to decide if his/her life was really worth financially crippling the rest of the family for ever. Very, very ugly…
But that’s exactly what can happen right now with all expensive procedures. Usually it doesn’t, though, because governments anticipate that risk and fund it and often private individuals purchase insurance. Its no uglier a prospect with organs as opposed to any other medical procedure, and organ transplants are as manageable as any other procedure.
January 15th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
One thing to keep in mind with organ donating is the actual mechanics of it. The moment that the person has died, the body needs to be “kept alive” until the doner is available and the operating theatre is ready, etc. While I don’t actually know, it wouldn’t surprise me if this was several days.
This means that any grieving done by relatives (for example those that are at the bedside while the person dies) will have to be done in the absence of the person’s body. It is obviously a very sensitive time, and I imagine that most doctors would not want to be placed in a situation of trying to remove the body if the relatives are unhappy about it.
Donating organs may also mean that a funeral cannot be arranged for some time because the body may not be available.
I am a registered organ donor (I ticked the box on my driver’s licence) and I hope that whatever remains of my body after I die can be used to help others. I would be a disappointed spirit in my afterlife if my relatives decided to interfere. However, I can also see the other side of the story, and why we have the situation we do.
January 15th, 2008 at 3:14 pm
In Australia the process of agreeing to organ donation seems to be decoupled from the process of obtaining a drivers licence (at least I was never asked… maybe they took one look at me and realised most of my organs are wel past their use-by date).
Hence on my NZ licence I’m a donor, but not in Australia. Apparently you register separately and it’s one of those things I “must get around to”. I don’t know why, though.
Upon the cessation of what passes for thought processes, I have no further vested interest in what happens to the several kilos of meat I leave behind. And nor, I hope, would any other rational person.
If I really want to keep all the bits intact in case I really do get a free boat ride across the Styx and it’d be inconvenient to share a tipple with the boatman minus my liver, then I can always fill in a form saying I’d prefer not to be dissected. Doesn’t seem an unreasonable process to me.
January 15th, 2008 at 4:20 pm
I have agreed for mine to be used as noted on my drivers license that is if they are in a fit state to be used. I object now to any relatives vetoing that.
The other thing is that organs have to be removed very soon after death. What happens if my drivers license is not in my pocket at the time? The organs would be lost. I would suggest willing donors should have a small tattoo placed in an inconspicuous place such as behind an ear. Possibly nowadays a chip could be inserted. Every hospital and ambulance could carry a reader with instructions.
I think such moves would give a big boost to the number of organs available.
January 15th, 2008 at 4:35 pm
I will take the debate full circle with this:
Heart brought back to life:
http://www.metronews.ca/story.aspx?id=101274
Extract:
“Researchers have brought a dead animal heart back to life in the lab by repopulating it with healthy cells, a feat they believe may someday allow them to grow new hearts and other organs for people desperate for transplants”
Suddenly Ghostwhowalks comment about recycling at the begining has some context, you can look at this advent of medical science several ways but logically it should fix organ donor problems by making matches irrelevant, also organs would not need to be harvested “alive” as a dead but still intact organ would work just fine.
This should logically make Browns law change irrelevant.
January 15th, 2008 at 4:38 pm
Brian SMALLER said “Personally, i would go further. I would say that if you have any objection to being a donor, you are not elligible for donated parts yourself.”…and I agree with him. Some cultures accept that it is okay to receive donated organs but not to donate them…As a start perhaps the Health Insurers could set up a co-operative whereby members had the first call on the organs of members, it would be good business and of benefit to clients as well.
January 15th, 2008 at 6:15 pm
RRM Oh I dont know An organ market could be interesting Mark Weldon at the NZX is the man Hes set up a carbon trading market with Mark Franklin ex Vector running that Im sure the 2 Marks would be happy to clip the ticket on the trade of hearts lungs livers even brains if they had any value.
These guys are experts at ‘adding value’ so body parts wont be an issue.
Written like this, it sounds awful. But the upshot is that lives will be saved. Shame on anyone for thinking that avoiding the possibility of somebody making money on transplanting live organs is worth the lives lost. Why is it acceptable to pay the doctor for the operation but not the people that organise materials? Why are opponents of organ markets willing to let other people die just to satisfy themselves? In any context outside healthcare that is blatantly immoral behaviour.
January 15th, 2008 at 7:31 pm
Personally, while I would like to receive a donated body part if it helped to prolong my own life and am more than willing to donate any of my bits, I am not sure they would be wanted.
What was that movie where the guy said “Hey, I plan to donate my body to science fiction.”?
January 15th, 2008 at 7:36 pm
My husband is alive and healthy today, 13 years after a desolate and grieving family agreed to donate their dead son’s organs for transplant. My husband and father to a then toddler, have nothing but gratitude towards this family whose son’s heart has kept my husband alive and our family together for what seems to have been a lifetime. Emotion aside, this issue has a solution. Every “issue” has a solution but Governments fuck about creating problems where none should exist. Each person has the right to decide what happens to THEIR body upon death. If donation is agreed to, no rellies should have the ability to rescind this.
January 15th, 2008 at 8:03 pm
Organ snatching is a socialists ultimate wet dream. In the fevered imagination of their dreams, where they are still 17 and drinking cups of tea wearing baggy cardies in the common room……… They dream of a world where private property is a distant memory, yes even your innards!
Everything is communally owned, even granddads liver (the presbyterian one, obviously catholic granddads liver is fucked).
You are not the sole arbiter of responsibility for your children anymore and political thought has been nationalised, so why not your eyeballs or your heart.
Coming to a dykocracy near you soon.
Perhaps a Monty Pyhtons “Meaning of life” moment where they come and take your liver out before you have finished using it.
Disclosure:
I have ticked donor on the License form and Te Papa have expressed an interest in displaying my penis when I am finished with it… Although my wife claims to have done a deal with Ripleys Believe It Or Not, so they may need to send some tangata whenua around with a very large truck to snatch it.