“The Pittsburgh-based group wants a 1984 law prohibiting financial incentives for organ donations to be rewritten to allow a project that would award $5,000 to families who authorize a deceased relative’s organs to be used for transplantation.”
Temporarily disregarding the inevitable (and most likely infrequent) murder-for-profit schemes that this might breed, I am beginning to agree with the entire concept. I totally understand previous resistance to this notion by the medical community. Yet, the tragic and unnecessary loss of life that happens on a daily basis due to unavailability of donated tissue and organs is unconscionable.
Any sort of incentive would go a long way towards ameliorating this problem. Lack of awareness and just plain backward thinking has resulted in a flat donation rate in recent years. This is unacceptable and must be changed.
One simple fact:
The monetary cost of providing these cash disbursements to donor families pales in comparison to the tremendous expense of keeping people who are awaiting transplants on dialysis or heart lung machines. The daily care costs probably total in the millions of dollars, whereas the outlay for these incentives would be almost negligible. I suspect it might be a few hundred thousand dollars per day, at the very most.
Any concerns about murder-for-profit could be allayed by simply prohibiting donations from individuals whose death is surrounded by suspicious circumstances.
Lack of donors is a problem that will not go away and is only getting worse. As the baby boom generation begins to gray, the lack of transplant donors will pose increasingly serious issues both in terms of subsidized care costs and quality of life. Barring any glaring oversights by supporters of this, I feel the time has come to reconsider the prohibition on these cash incentives.
It’s unfortunate that I think incentives would increase organ donation. People should give out of the goodness of their heart.
The money thing concerns me, though. There are people who do not want to donate their organs (for whatever reason). What would stop family members from trumping the wishes of the dead for a few thousand? Also, I can see maddening litigation from this, with family members sueing each other for the money and family members sueing the hospital if organs couldn’t be used for something the staff did.
Would money encourage people not to take heroic measures to save their loved ones on life support? In most cases that might be a good thing (not putting someone needlessly on life support, I mean) but in some cases, it may not be.
I believe in several european countries, the default status for organ donation preference is donation (sometimes called “presumed consent”) . IOW, unless one specifically requests otherwise (via drivers license etc…), it is assumed that organ donation is permissable on the deceased.
This is one thing I think that Europe is right about…
And I feel the grounds for getting out of it should be rather stringent.
For instance, Out for Religious reasons is okay if that has been established for the last 100 years or so, but engaging at the time of death in a determined (by government of course) risky endeavor, = free climbing in mountains, ridding motorcycles, bicycles, driving cars, and all flying if done without helmets, all self inflicted deaths etc.
Any of the above and you are ‘spare parts’ , If you want your parts to go with ya, = got to be real straight arrow and lead a real dull life.
All people in prison regardless of anything except contaminated parts which of course applies to all… DUH BRT
That way we got the best of both worlds, lots of organs and still freedom to get out of it if we want to pay the price…
I don’t think “stringent grounds” are either ethical or necessary. According to the article, only about 2% of the population “opted out” of being a donor.
One question that bothers me is where would the money come from to pay for the donated organ. I actually like beagledave idea. This I think would generate more organs for those that could use them then essentially buying them.
There was another recent article on this subject that made me mad. It states that even if a person has signed a donor concent form, the real decision is up to the family members.
A law maker had introduced legislation to make donor form legal documents that the family can’t override.
I’m totally for that. I have a donor card in my wallet, and I would be spinning in my grave if someone disregarded my wishes because someone in my family said to.
autz, some states already have legislation that makes the donor’s wishes binding. Indiana is one of them - the Indiana Organ Procurement Organization website has information about it.
WinkieHubby is waiting for a kidney transplant. I am an okay match, and about to start my medical evaluation to be a living donor. He is also on the transplant list - and even so, I’m not sure how I feel about financial incentives for deceased donors.
I fully admit that it isn’t rational or logical, but the thought that money would change someone’s mind about donating their loved ones’ organs makes me feel icky. It’s not that I think compensation is wrong, it just seems like a decision that shouldn’t be based on money.
Why? The decision of the surgeon to PERFORM the transplant is certainly based on the money. As is the hospital accepting the patient based on the money. So why is it unseemly to pay money for the organ? A double standard, methinks. Why shouldn’t the procedure be a “charitable gift” from all parties involved then?
A simple and huge source of money would be a $5.[sup]00[/sup] check-off box on everybody’s tax forms. I’d mark that one every year for the rest of my life.
Another big cash cow would be philanthropic contributions. I think Bill Gates would be good for several million worth of seed money. NIH, Ford Foundation, MacArthur Foundation … the list is endless.
I also believe the government could validly redirect some small portion of hospital funding that is proportinate to the incredible savings realized by not having to support extended patient treatment using mechanical life support systems.
A 50¢ fee increase for driver’s licenses.
All tranplant patients could pay (using a sliding scale) one simple $20.[sup]00[/sup] enrollment fee to get onto the donor supply list.
pohjonen , that’s why I said it isn’t logical or rational - it isn’t. It is just a gut feeling. I completely understand that the rest of the equation is based on money. In My Perfect World [sup]tm[/sup], families would choose donation because it is the right thing to do - save other people’s lives with the organs your loved one isn’t using any more.
Trust me when I say I’m highly in favor of increasing the number of donated organs. We’re lucky, in that kidney failure is treatable through dialysis, and it is unlikely that WinkieHubby will die while waiting for a transplant. We’re also lucky that living donation is an option. Many people are not that lucky, and maybe I would not be so icked-out in that situation.
I’m not opposed to a trial of this idea. However, I am more in favor of national legislation of “presumed consent”, or legislation that at least makes the wishes of the donor binding. To me, these options eliminate the feeling of paying for organs, while also increasing the number of donated organs.
What if we do get “presumed consent” AND “financial incentives”…
… and there still aren’t enough organs for everyone who needs them?
You see, it’s not enough just to die – you have to die in the right circumstances, usually head injury without heart or lung injury. Trauma, not disease. No history of hepetitis, HIV, cancer, etc. And not be lying on the sidewalk or out in the woods too long.
Motorcycle riders do contribute a large number of transplant organs… but when they’re in an accident it’s frequently in a fairly urbanized setting where their still-breathing body can be quickly transported to a hospital where their organs can be maintained until necessary arrangements can be made to perform the “harvest”.
Fall off a cliff in Yosemite, or crash an airplane out in the woods, more likely the wildlife will get a chance at some of your organs (nibble nibble nibble…) than one of your fellow humans.
So… if presumed consent and financial incentives are not enough (and I don’t believe they are) what are you going to do next? Outlaw motorcycle helmets? (It would increase the donor pool…)
Tricky issue. I think one thing to consider is real research on why people decline donation. To me, it’s baffling. Why do people refuse to donate their own organs, or the organs of others?
If we can determine the reasons, we might be able to explore ways of changing people’s minds.
I can think of a few questions I have, and I’m very willing to donate organs. (Questions like: Who pays for the procedures? I’ve heard conflicting answers.) Think of how many questions someone might have who has never thought about the subject!
There was a big thread around here a while back in which a lot of people expressed reulctance (or declared their refusal) to sign their donor cards, because they felt it would encourage medical personnel to give up on them sooner than they might otherwise.
I find this view baffling, personally–not just that doctors would weigh that in their decision to continue or terminate efforts, but that people would consider this small risk to outweigh the good that donated organs could do if the unspeakable happens.
I’ve heard some folks express displeasure at the term “harvesting” when applied to the acquisition of donor organs. I didn’t really get the entire point of their objection…but they seemed to think that it was a somehow demeaning term or showed a lack of respect for the potential donor…or suggested an “over-eagerness” for organs that Dr. J alluded to.
I did a quick google…and came up with this dude who seems to represent that point of view.
I know this doesn’t help with the donor problem now, but the ability to culture human stem cells suggests there could be a possibility of creating entire organs in the future. Scientists have said using pluripotent cells can help repair heart muscles after congestive heart failure and they say the these stem cells can go well beyond fixing damaged tissues. One future possibility is the in vitro growth of whole organs for organ replacement. The best thing about the ability to grow organs is probably that it will eliminate (or at the very least, reduce) what is perhaps the most difficult part of the transplant procedure…waiting for a suitable organ to become available. Scientists from the Australian Genome Research Facility have said growing entire complex organs could be 10 - 15 years away from being a reality. In the meantime, I don’t really have a problem with giving money as an incentive for people to donate organs…if that’s what it takes then so be it.
DrJ is correct by stating sometimes medical staffs will not do all they can, if a donor sticker is on a license. A hypothetical- a baby needs an organ to live; isn’t it just maybe, possible that an older, dying person is "allowed "to die, so the organs can be used for the lovely baby? Nurses tell me this, & from personal knowledge, medical folks have the same emotions as anyone else.
