It isn't quite that simple of course. To start with, only one per cent of people will die in circumstances where organ donation is possible. Obviously you can't donate organs if you've died of some serious illness affecting the whole body, or if your organs have been damaged in (say) a car accident, or if you've died abroad and it would take time to return the body to the UK.
Also my family would have to be consulted about donating my organs, and if they objected my body would have to remain intact. Doctors won't proceed if the family objects, however useful my organs might be (though I see that next of kin don't have the legal right to veto your decision).
My immediate family is my sister, my brother in law and my niece. but whether they count as family for the purpose of consultation isn't clear.
So although theoretically it's entirely my choice to allow my organs to be donated, in practice my family can overrule me and doctors' hands are tied. I don't agree with that at all. I don't see why my family should have any say in the matter, since it's my body and not theirs. It's especially perverse when over 7,000 people in the UK are waiting desperately for life-saving organ transplants.
I would like to think that someone in urgent need had been given one (or several) of my organs and had a new lease of life, and that my body hadn't simply gone to waste.
Can't say I relish the idea of my body being cut up. On the other hand I am an avid recycler. So, whatever. I won't know about it. On the other hand it might be hard on those grieving for me to think of me in bits. Enter worms. Not that there is much of me to feast on.
ReplyDeleteAnd what of this? A lot of "donors" are being turned away because there are too many of them. To think that once upon a time grave robbers were needed to advance medical science, medical students learning on actual bodies. There is an amazing painting by Rembrandt "The Anatomy Lesson" looking into neuroscience (the brain).
This is a bit off kilter and, possibly, out of context but sometimes I wish that, on death, we'd just dissolve into a whiff of air. Mind you, that would put undertakers out of business. Which reminds me, Nick, and I retch on the very memory of it: One of the worst people that came into my life was an undertaker (briefly, a few minutes). Ghastly.
Yes, big sigh. Interesting subject you raised there.
On a practical note: Maybe you could make legal arrangements for Jenny (power of attorney/whatever) to be your executor of your will. Mind you, that won't help if she exits stage left first.
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Ursula: I didn't know a lot of donors are being turned away. Is that because they're not suitable for one reason or another? As for our wills, everything we possess is in joint names so if one of us dies the other automatically inherits the lot. If we both die, our wills specify an executor who is a lot younger than we are so is likely to still be alive.
DeleteI was also going to say that if you put down Jenny as next of kin then I think they would ask her - they don’t bother with extended family.
ReplyDeleteThe doctors asked me for my dad’s corneas 10 minutes after he’d died - they are like vultures, but I guess they have to be, don’t they? I agreed to it as it was nice to think of some part of him living on. They didn’t ask my sister, I thought she’d be agreeable in any case. So, anyhow, I think they’d just ask Jenny.
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Ms Scarlet: The law doesn't seem to be very clear on consulting the family. I imagine the reason the doctors asked about your dad's corneas so quickly is that the longer the delay the more likely that the organ in question has degraded and can no longer be used.
ReplyDeleteI don’t know the statistics here. We sign up via our state bureau of motor vehicles. Only one next of kin is required to approve the donation, likely a spouse. Medical students, including nursing, still use cadavers here to learn.
ReplyDeleteBijoux: Needing only one next of kin to approve the donation is good. I don't know if our medical students still learn with dead bodies.
DeleteA medical student friend cast an eye over me and said he thought I'd be wasting my time in volunteering as a donor. Thank you, Jorge!
ReplyDeleteFly: Oh dear, what did he have in mind?
DeleteI have an organ donor card , even if my health is no more the best. We had a tragedy in our family when my daughters husband needed an organ which never came and he died leaving a widow of 31 and a child of 3. So we all were very concerned and what a gift to give a new life to somebody else.
ReplyDeleteHannah
Hannah: That's very sad about your daughter's husband dying. And the widow only 31. The more people who want to be organ donors the better.
DeleteMy mother donated her body to science in Arizona. I had to sign a release saying it was OK with me. Why? It wasn't my body. My Health Care Directive says they can take any part of my body they think will be useful. For instance, I don't think skin qualifies as an organ, but a burn victim might be glad to receive it. After all, I'm done using it.
ReplyDeleteLinda
Linda: Exactly, it's my body, why should other people be able to veto my wishes? Re what qualifies, I think tissue qualifies but not skin.
DeleteThe skin is the largest organ. Scientifically speaking
DeleteKylie, I guess that's true.
DeleteI think my body is too much of a wreck to salvage any useful bits even though I signed a form a long time ago when it was more in fettle.
ReplyDeleteI don't give a flying now, let Daughter do what she will with this old wreck. My only stipulation is to throw the ashes in with my mother.
XO
WWW
www: Probably a lot of people are ruled out of being donors because their body has been compromised by various illnesses. But I don't care what happens to my ashes - Jenny can do whatever she wants.
DeleteIn Wales it's the other way about: you have to opt out of organ donation.
ReplyDeleteThat's the case in NI as well. But then can the family still object? It's all very unclear.
DeleteI'm not an organ donor and I know that my take on things seems a bit callous but I feel the way I feel.
ReplyDeleteI'm not an organ donor because when the doctors harvest our organs we are essentially still alive most times, having been kept alive on a ventilator so they can take our organs. Where do they draw the line between waiting for someone to die and causing them to die in order to get those organs. All they have to see now is brain death in order to say that we are dead. I've read that some brain dead people still emit brain waves and because they are brain dead they aren't given anesthesia during the harvesting of organs and some people flinch with the scalpel incision, heart rates go up and so does blood pressure. Doctors say it's just a normal reaction but what if they can feel pain?
If there's even a small chance that I might be thinking or be able to feel pain, I don't want my organs taken. Just remove the ventilator and let me pass.
There's nothing selfish about not being an organ donor. I was born with these organs and I see no reason why I shouldn't die with them and not give them away after my death. It's my choice. I also would never accept an organ even if I needed one. I don't donate blood and I won't accept it either.
I'm a misanthrope. I don't care about the vast vast majority of human beings enough to sacrifice a part of myself in order to "give someone else a new lease on life". Has nothing to do with being selfish, but more with the fact that I don't like most humans. They're my body parts in my body and others shouldn't have a vested interest in what's mine even after I die. I don't owe anyone a thing.
Mary: Goodness, that's a very unusual and very interesting position on organ donation. I need to have a good think about that before I reply.
DeleteMary: Personally I like the idea that if I die someone else can receive one or more of my organs, but not everyone feels the same. I do understand your reservations about donating though I don't share them. But I agree that your body is your own and you alone can decide what to do or not do with it. Nobody else should be able to overrule your wishes, whatever they might think of them.
ReplyDeleteKylie said "I'm pretty sure that only next-of-kin would have decision making rights when it comes to organs and other end of life matters BUT if the next of kin made a decision the rest of the family hated, there would be trouble in the family and also potentially for the doctors/ hospital / recipients involved so best to leave the bits inside unless there is agreement."
ReplyDeleteKylie: You're probably right. Better to leave the body intact if using some of it will lead to a continuing family conflict.
DeleteNick, I agree with you in that I too have signed up to be an organ donor if any parts can help someone else. Once there is no chance that I could survive whatever catastrophe came my way, then hat use would any part of me be to myself. I have always been a blood donor in the years preceding the pandemic although not so much in recent years as I have seen less notices for donation sites.
ReplyDeleteBeatrice: Exactly, your organs are no use to you any more, so why not pass them on? Re blood donations, I've given blood 33 times. I only had to stop because they were worried about my (slightly raised) blood pressure.
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