Home › Forums › Open Discussion › Are you an organ donor?
- This topic is empty.
-
AuthorPosts
-
November 24, 2011 at 2:31 am #601373
JanSParticipantWould you consider being a live kidney donor? Here are some stats…
http://www.dailymarkets.com/economy/2011/11/22/charts-of-the-day-kidney-shortage-worsens-yearly/
Yes I am one of those waiting for a kidney. Want to know more about donating? Contact me…just click on my name, takes it to my website and contact info….
November 24, 2011 at 3:38 am #741707
kootchmanMemberJan… so the summary of the link was this:
“The only realistic, long-term and truly compassionate solution to address America’s worsening kidney shortage is to legalize some form of donor compensation. “
Agree or not?
This is the position of Swedish
Donation must be a voluntary act, with no monetary compensation or other forms of pressure or reward.
November 24, 2011 at 3:42 am #741708
JanSParticipantAs much as I hate to say it, I kind of agree. There are a lot of healthy people out there with perfectly good kidneys. There are a lot of us that don’t have functioning kidneys. The disparity between those who need kidneys, and those who are getting kidneys is tremendous. Money talks. It’s that simple. Of course, that’s where some kind of regulations comes in, but more people would think about doing it if they knew there would be some compensation. There would still be stringent testing, so it’s not like it would become a huge “market” kinda thing, I don’t think. The question is…who pays? I certainly can’t compensate someone..so there is that.
What do you think?
November 24, 2011 at 3:57 am #741709
kootchmanMemberWell, I am not a registered organ donor. Once I found out that they harvest hearts while on a ventilator… I tore up the card. However, the doctors get paid, the hospital gets paid, the donor registry gets paid, the harvest team gets paid. What would incentivize me to reconsider? The chance to leave my daughter an inheritance would. I think any parent would. Steve Jobs had no problem finding a liver. I assume that a larger pool including compensated donors would increase the total supply. Both compensated and non-compensated donors. If I was on life support and my kidney was worth 50K (non-taxable) I would say cut away. Ditto post mortem. Seems the donor is the only one being asked to be altruistic.
November 24, 2011 at 4:30 am #741710
JanSParticipantBeing someone who needs a kidney, I sometimes have a hard time with the fact that my life literally depends on the goodness of someone else. Yes, there is dialysis, and I am happy that the technology is there. But it sure plays havoc at times with “quality of life”. Fact is, getting a kidney form a live donor has a better outcome than form a deceased donor. Especially for someone my age.Would I turn down a deceased donors kidney? Of course not. But..how does one put the word out to try and get a live donor? One has to literally promote oneself, and almost beg people to please , please go get tested. And, I have a high amount of anti-bodies in my blood, so it makes a match even more difficult. I’m not one to beg…it puts one in a quandry.So I periodically put the information out there. If it doesn’t help me, hopefully it may help someone who is needing a kidney. (Of course, tax free – lol)
November 24, 2011 at 5:49 am #741711
HMC RichParticipantJan, if someone gives up a kidney, then 10 years later the other one starts to fail, would a kidney transplant work for them?
What blood type are you?
Go ahead and beg, ask, question etc, etc.
November 24, 2011 at 6:10 am #741712
chrismaParticipantJust for the record: Steve Jobs had “no problem” finding a liver because he had enough money to establish a residence in every state so that he could get on each state’s transplant list. He also had a jet ready to fly at any moment so that he could get himself to wherever a liver might become available for him. I’m sure he could have bought himself a liver (or two) had that option been available to him, but he’s hardly the typical case.
November 24, 2011 at 6:11 am #741713
JanSParticipantRich, I would assume that a kidney transplant would work for them, just like with anyone else whose kidneys have failed. So, yes, I understand what a BIG DECISION it is to become a donor. I just reassure people that people can function perfectly fine with only one kidney. I actually know one person who was born with only one kidney (she has already told me sorry – lol)
My blood type? I am B-. The negative and positive part doesn’t matter. So I can receive from either B or O type blood.
November 29, 2011 at 7:24 pm #741714
JanSParticipantmore info about live organ donations…
http://www.kidney.org/transplantation/livingDonors/infoQA.cfm
November 30, 2011 at 4:09 am #741715
IrukandjiParticipant@Kootch re Cadaveric Organ Donation:
FWIW2u, brain death must be declared by two physicians, one of whom is a neurologist or neurosurgeon, and the full brain death exams must be performed many hours apart (locally, the timing is at least six hours apart). The patient is then declared legally dead, and the time registered on the Death Certificate is the time of that second exam.
The deceased is registered with the medical examiner’s office by the hospital, and family is notified before any work toward donation can occur. Even as a registered donor there is nothing that can be done outside of life-saving work by a hospital until there is a time of death.
It can take MANY hours to perform the tests needed to find blood and tissue type, get med-soc history, receive clearance from the medical examiner’s office, and provide the family with the information they need before any surgery can be done. Without recipients located and ready, there is no recovery of organs EXCEPT for kidneys which can remain on a kidney pump pre-transplant for up to 72 hours.
Organs that have suffered anoxic damage cannot be transplanted, hence mechanical management on a ventilator of the deceased until the time of organ recovery. Without the extensive and precise medical/mechanical management, there are no transplantable organs.
For Non-Brain Dead Donation, or Asystolic Donation heart recovery has never yet occured. The process requires that a patient have such compromised respiratory and neurological function that asystole occurs within fewer than 60 minutes after removal of the ventilator.
Withdrawal of mechanical support is the decision made by the family even before the option for organ donation is offered (assuming they haven’t asked the hospital about donation already). If the family wants to allow an organ recovery team the chance to be onsite and ready for surgery upon withdrawal, that lengthens the time a family waits after having resigned to the fact that life is no longer possibility. It’s a LOT to ask of a family, and even more to WAIT, just for the potential to donate.
Because the timing is so specific, and the anoxic damage that occurs to a body as it shuts down is so great, the organs recovered for transplant are usually only kidneys, and even then (with all tests performed in advance), their suitability for transplant isn’t assured until they are recovered. It’s just within the last few years that livers have been recovered for transplant from an asystolic donor. the amount of time it takes to perform such delicate surgeries rules out all other organs for potential donation because of the simple process of shutting down. Still, even in these cases, tissue and cornea donation remain an option since these are always cadaveric surgeries.
More info available if desired.
Live well, donate a beautiful corpse.
November 30, 2011 at 7:22 am #741716
JanSParticipantirukandji..for the record…Kootchman does not let facts get in the way of his stories. It’s so much easier (and more fun, I suppose) to make stuff up ;-)
November 30, 2011 at 9:37 am #741717
kootchmanMemberAnd what was made up? They harvest whilst you are on a ventilator and the heart is still beating. I understand you must be declared brain dead. You try too hard Jan..mostly in error. The issue at hand was a simple one, IF organs are to be made more available, why not offer compensation? That was the issue. I merely posted my uncomfortableness with the method… and obviously some potential donors and health care providers feel similarly.
November 30, 2011 at 3:57 pm #741718
amaliaParticipantIrukandji-
Thanks for countering the paranoid sci-fi falsities. They serve no one. You don’t have to be a donor (although I don’t understand the decision to NOT be one at all – don’t you hope someone else is there for you if you need it??), but implying that organs are ripped from the living (who might at any moment sit up and ask for it back!) is just silly.
November 30, 2011 at 4:01 pm #741719
JanSParticipantwhat you fail to recognize, Kootch, is that irukandji worked in the organ donor field for quite some time. She knows the ins and outs far better than the likes of you. Time to keep the mouth shut…at least on this one…you are the delusional one here. You cannot be the expert on everything, and it’s showing..
November 30, 2011 at 4:02 pm #741720
JanSParticipantand Kootch…the issue of compensation has come up more and more lately. How about your compensation being the fact that you directly contributed to saving someone’s life. Why does it all have to come down to money? I read your article. No source for that, of course. I saw the word “harvest” mentioned once…maybe twice. You, in your original post, made it sound like they were “harvesting” hearts while you were still alive. You said it that way to get a reaction, pure and simple. You have your own reasons for not being an organ donor, and I can live with that. But please don’t use the “harvest” thing as an excuse. It’s a procedure, that’s all. An organ from a deceased person needs to be viable. I think you understand that. The wonders of modern science. Might possible save a life or two.Guess you need to be in my shoes for an hour or two, huh…
November 30, 2011 at 6:08 pm #741721
IrukandjiParticipantI personally prefer a system now used in many other countries in which all citizens are presumed donors unless they specifically opt-out: it’s the right thing to do to help others. Since such a tiny few meet all the necessary heath requirements AND die in a way conducive to donation (both for asystolic and cadaveric donation), the larger pool there is of those WILLING to donate upon death leads to the chance that there will be a tiny percentage more that actually CAN donate.
November 30, 2011 at 6:32 pm #741722
DBPMemberSo you tore up your donor card, kootch? Yeah, I can just see you doing that. Probably for the best anyway.
What if they’d taken your heart and put it into the chest of some flaming liberal? Just imagine the confusion that poor person would experience on election day . . .
Oh, this is agony! My head says “Patty” but my heart says “Dino.” What do I do? What do I do?
November 30, 2011 at 6:40 pm #741723
amaliaParticipantWhat “donor card”? It’s a heart symbol on your driver’s license, no? Those things are hard to tear up! I tried when I saw my photo.
November 30, 2011 at 7:03 pm #741724
DBPMemberSelling organs is not a good idea because . . .
♥ The rich WON’T do it
♥ The poor SHOULDN’T do it
And the middle class?
Excuse me . . . What middle class?
**************************************************************************************
I understand that selling organs is a well-intentioned proposal, and I’m not trashing anyone for merely floating it. But let’s consider some hypotheticals.
Suppose there’s an impoverished single mother out there, and she’s got a kidney compatible with Jan’s bod. She’d never thought about donating before, but in the past year, her kid has come down with a rare disease and she needs $45,000 for treatment.
Then she sees an ad in the paper:
   Wanted: Kidney. Offering $45,000. Contact Jan at _______
So Jan, whaddaya think? Would you still want this lady’s kidney, knowing the circumstances?
Or let’s say her kid’s healthy, but she just wants to move to a better neighborhood, or take him to Disneyland while he’s still little.
Maybe there’s a loan-shark she needs to pay off.
Oh, hell. What does it matter what she wants to do with the money? Could anything be a worthy trade for her own kidney?
**************************************************************************************
Â
November 30, 2011 at 7:10 pm #741725
365StairsParticipantPretty easy thought for me at least…Won’t need it anymore…if it’s still useful – take it.
I found the movie Seven Pounds (Will Smith) to be pretty thought provoking.
Another one – I think it was called “Repo Men” told the story of folks that could not pay for their elected or otherwise donor items and well…had to “give” them back…so to speak. Off topic a bit…but plays into the selling discussion…
November 30, 2011 at 7:22 pm #741726
DBPMemberI might be convinced to support the selling of an organ under kootch’s scenario of a brain-dead person on a ventilator. Certainly, no harm would come to that person from parting with an organ. And with the proceeds, they could leave a tidy legacy for their family.
However, there is STILL a potential problem, even with this limited, post-mortem type of sale.
Think of the millions of death-donors out there now who, if death-bed selling were to be allowed, might just revoke their free donation, based on this line of reasoning:
Hey, I’m not rich. If something happened to me, my family would really be hurting. Why should I give away what I can sell for good money? Why not let my family sell my organs to the highest bidder?
As this kind of thinking spreads, the number of on-death free organ donors drops, and the organs that are “harvested” for sale after death now end up going not to the impoverished Jans of this country, but to the Steve Jobs’s . . .
How does that outcome square with the original intention of using the marketplace to increase the availability of organs?
Â
November 30, 2011 at 7:51 pm #741727
kootchmanMemberJan..
Here is the direct quote:
“Once I found out that they harvest hearts while on a ventilator… I tore up the card”
I didn’t imply anything. I tried to open the discussion a bit and send a URL on the emotional response of others… and resistance to the same decision. You sure find a lot of stuff…in a one sentence. I sent an article.. not a treatise. Don’t know how better sourced it can be than the person who wrote the article , can you? I can be an expert on how I feel about an issue, an emotional, gut reaction. You read all these Jan ‘thingies” into some pretty simple statements. irukundji I would have presumed is in the organ donation field…and the issue still remains, greater availability. So far the transplant industry has monopolized the ethics, the procedures, while the demand increases and supply does not. And, yes, I had a laminated unifirm donor card Ms. A.
“You, in your original post, made it sound like they were “harvesting” hearts while you were still alive”
DPB a more reasoned response:
“I understand that selling organs is a well-intentioned proposal, and I’m not trashing anyone for merely floating it. But let’s consider some hypotheticals”
DBP… why follow your heart, of course. :-)
November 30, 2011 at 10:57 pm #741728
JanSParticipantSelling organs..let’s not call it that. Let’s call it compensating for a donation. Imagine the regulations involved with that. Yes, I do agree that money talks and that would make more people open to it. It just seems to me that “doing the right thing” should prevail, money not withstanding. But doing the right thing isn’t cutting it, it seems.I’m sorry that I seemed to have misunderstood.
December 1, 2011 at 6:04 am #741729
kootchmanMemberDBP
“As this kind of thinking spreads, the number of on-death free organ donors drops, and the organs that are “harvested” for sale after death now end up going not to the impoverished Jans of this country, but to the Steve Jobs’s . . “
Steve Jobs level of wealth could fly to India, Sri Lanka, Bulgaria, etc. today and purchase a living donor organ, and we know China sells executed prisoner organs. That is a given. The unknown is would transparant compensation increase the total available transplant organs? A person on the wait list as I understand it lives in the confines of a harvest protocol. A scenario: A church member needs a transplant. That community who embraces that person has time to mobilize resources, raise funds, and generate enough income to offer donor compensation. Social networks have built barns, harvested crops, remodeled homes for handicap access…and importantly, pulls others into the organ shortage debate. It’s not like a whole lot of people LIKE to encounter or discuss the issue, that, confronting mortality thing. Being part of social mobilizing effort would bring a degree of familiarity, perhaps a better comfort level, and exposure to different view points.. alturism is sometimes a marinating and extended thought process.a twice a year 30 second ad campaign doesn’t work.. opting out is not consent,..altruism I would suspect is hard to coax in the middle of the event that makes donation a possibility. As it stands today, there is no planning horizon to mobilize a procurement effort since compensation is not part of the equation.
December 1, 2011 at 6:12 am #741730
DBPMemberAll good points, my man. I could be persuaded to change my views on this, as long as two conditions are met:
1) We DO end up with more donated organs avaiable and
2) We DON’T end up with poor people trading their body parts for basic necessities.
-
AuthorPosts
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.