Organ Transplant Bill
Discussion
Rovinghawk said:
If you get the agreeable & the apathetic then good. Trying to sweep up the objectors would be unacceptable.
Just as well that's not what they're doing. Oh, and check your attributions...Roofless Toothless said:
Moonhawk said:
fblm said:
Opting out should also mean you go right to the bottom of the transplant list should you ever be on one!
Yep - this.I was 10 years on the road with a Blood Service collection team. You have to learn the responses to all sorts of things donors say. One of the most frequent is "Everybody should do this, and if you don't then you can't receive blood either."
I never understood why people used to say this. It was usually uttered with a fair degree of belligerence, as well, with a dash of self congratulation on top.
The truth is, a volunteer based system is much safer than compulsion. Would you really want an American style gleaning of prisons for blood and organs? Also many people, myself included, would be barred from organ donation because of their medical history. Many are similarly barred from blood donation.
Roofless Toothless said:
Does that mean that hospitals should put certain ethnic groups at the back of the queue if they need blood or tissues? Or, sorry mate, you're a Jehova's Witness, so we'll just stand here and watch you die.
JoWits would be quite happy with that. Insistent upon it, actually.Roofless Toothless said:
After all this, I have to say I have my doubts about this scheme. One of the stock answers to a blood donor in the scenario above is, "well, if everybody donated we would end up with too much blood, and it would go wasted." About five percent of people donate, and actually that quite neatly covers demand. If it were to become necessary to up that percentage a couple of points this could be done easily enough by an advertising campaign. Blood collection sessions after a rail crash are manic. People are willing to come along, but just need a bit of a nudge.
Indeed. But organs are scarce - demand far outstrips supply.And, let's be honest, there's absolutely zero impact upon the organ donor, while going along to the vampires and dripping in a bag does require some effort and time.
Roofless Toothless said:
One of the nurses on my team went off and got a job with the transplant people in a role where she basically 'ambulance chased' cases where organ donation was a possibility, and had to talk to relatives at a very sensitive time, trying to persuade them to give permission. How she did that job I shall never know. She told me that even when the 'donor' was carrying a card, relatives would still refuse permission.
Yes, blocking that where it's the donor's clearly expressed wish should be put in place. But, if it's a choice between "Shut up, Auntie Doris - they wanted to" and "But you didn't say no", I know which is going to increase availability. And it's not ignoring the family. The combo would be nice...4x4Tyke said:
Custard.
On what bit? That people aren't actually dead (rotting bio mass) when organs are removed or that people have woken up before doctors had chance to remove organs?Here's some;
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howabou...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2219085/Ca...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2906601/...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northame...
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/US/brain-dead-ma...
Roofless Toothless said:
This is the problem that has to be overcome first - educating people what it is all about, and the real need to let NHSBT teams glean the organs. Surely this would be possible to achieve by better public education, and such a seemingly draconian move - guaranteed to get some people's backs up - wouldn't be needed.
Interesting & informative, thanks.As someone involved in this, could you confirm or deny whether donated blood has ever been sold abroad? I know that the blood service emphatically denies it but have heard to the contrary from elsewhere- are you able to provide some truth?
(I'm not asking about eg swapping some O+ for some French B-, I'm curious about actual sale or 'exchange for trade credits' as I heard it phrased)
Roofless Toothless said:
Er ... No actually.
I was 10 years on the road with a Blood Service collection team. You have to learn the responses to all sorts of things donors say. One of the most frequent is "Everybody should do this, and if you don't then you can't receive blood either."
I never understood why people used to say this. It was usually uttered with a fair degree of belligerence, as well, with a dash of self congratulation on top.
The truth is, a volunteer based system is much safer than compulsion. Would you really want an American style gleaning of prisons for blood and organs? Also many people, myself included, would be barred from organ donation because of their medical history. Many are similarly barred from blood donation.
It becomes obvious doing the job that certain ethnic groups are under represented at donor sessions, but this is down to cultural history, and you can't expect people to change overnight when they arrive in a country like the UK. The same would be true of organ donation. I can't confirm my suspicions about cultural subgroups among the British population, but I wouldn't be surprised...
Does that mean that hospitals should put certain ethnic groups at the back of the queue if they need blood or tissues? Or, sorry mate, you're a Jehova's Witness, so we'll just stand here and watch you die.
Donation is a matter of totally altruistic giving. Start making stipulations about who you are willing to give to and you are on a very slippery slope.
After all this, I have to say I have my doubts about this scheme. One of the stock answers to a blood donor in the scenario above is, "well, if everybody donated we would end up with too much blood, and it would go wasted." About five percent of people donate, and actually that quite neatly covers demand. If it were to become necessary to up that percentage a couple of points this could be done easily enough by an advertising campaign. Blood collection sessions after a rail crash are manic. People are willing to come along, but just need a bit of a nudge.
I suspect the same might be true of organ donation, outside of the case where a specific and rare match is required. If just a relatively few more people carried a card, it might be all that is needed.
One of the nurses on my team went off and got a job with the transplant people in a role where she basically 'ambulance chased' cases where organ donation was a possibility, and had to talk to relatives at a very sensitive time, trying to persuade them to give permission. How she did that job I shall never know. She told me that even when the 'donor' was carrying a card, relatives would still refuse permission.
This is the problem that has to be overcome first - educating people what it is all about, and the real need to let NHSBT teams glean the organs. Surely this would be possible to achieve by better public education, and such a seemingly draconian move - guaranteed to get some people's backs up - wouldn't be needed.
I don't get your point at all. If 2 people are medically suitable for 1 heart what's your case for the person who deliberately opted out getting it ahead of the other? I was 10 years on the road with a Blood Service collection team. You have to learn the responses to all sorts of things donors say. One of the most frequent is "Everybody should do this, and if you don't then you can't receive blood either."
I never understood why people used to say this. It was usually uttered with a fair degree of belligerence, as well, with a dash of self congratulation on top.
The truth is, a volunteer based system is much safer than compulsion. Would you really want an American style gleaning of prisons for blood and organs? Also many people, myself included, would be barred from organ donation because of their medical history. Many are similarly barred from blood donation.
It becomes obvious doing the job that certain ethnic groups are under represented at donor sessions, but this is down to cultural history, and you can't expect people to change overnight when they arrive in a country like the UK. The same would be true of organ donation. I can't confirm my suspicions about cultural subgroups among the British population, but I wouldn't be surprised...
Does that mean that hospitals should put certain ethnic groups at the back of the queue if they need blood or tissues? Or, sorry mate, you're a Jehova's Witness, so we'll just stand here and watch you die.
Donation is a matter of totally altruistic giving. Start making stipulations about who you are willing to give to and you are on a very slippery slope.
After all this, I have to say I have my doubts about this scheme. One of the stock answers to a blood donor in the scenario above is, "well, if everybody donated we would end up with too much blood, and it would go wasted." About five percent of people donate, and actually that quite neatly covers demand. If it were to become necessary to up that percentage a couple of points this could be done easily enough by an advertising campaign. Blood collection sessions after a rail crash are manic. People are willing to come along, but just need a bit of a nudge.
I suspect the same might be true of organ donation, outside of the case where a specific and rare match is required. If just a relatively few more people carried a card, it might be all that is needed.
One of the nurses on my team went off and got a job with the transplant people in a role where she basically 'ambulance chased' cases where organ donation was a possibility, and had to talk to relatives at a very sensitive time, trying to persuade them to give permission. How she did that job I shall never know. She told me that even when the 'donor' was carrying a card, relatives would still refuse permission.
This is the problem that has to be overcome first - educating people what it is all about, and the real need to let NHSBT teams glean the organs. Surely this would be possible to achieve by better public education, and such a seemingly draconian move - guaranteed to get some people's backs up - wouldn't be needed.
Oakey said:
4x4Tyke said:
Custard.
On what bit? That people aren't actually dead (rotting bio mass) when organs are removed or that people have woken up before doctors had chance to remove organs?Here's some;
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howabou...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2219085/Ca...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2906601/...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northame...
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/US/brain-dead-ma...
I also note https://www.organdonation.nhs.uk/supporting-my-dec...
4x4Tyke said:
You had to trawl the world to find a handful examples and in every single case no organs where taken. So the objection based on living people having organs removed is a probability fallacy and clearly nonsense.
Yebbutnobut...Look, here's a clickbait listicle with TEN TERRIFYING TRUE examples, an' everything. So it MUST be happening every day!
https://www.ranker.com/list/true-stories-of-people...
<thinks>
But quite what it has to do with whether the British government continue to ask politely, or simply join the list of countries to presume consent is another question...
http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/93/3/14-139535...
WHO said:
Explicit opt-out laws have long been among the major interventions used to increase the pool of potential donors in countries such as Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Luxembourg, Norway, Poland, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and Turkey. There is evidence that supports the association between presumed consent and increased donation rates and that countries with opt-out laws have rates 25 to 30% higher than those in countries requiring explicit consent.
TooMany2cvs said:
Rovinghawk said:
Just helping themselves gives better results than getting permission? Who would have imagined that?
<points to list containing half of EU countries (and way more than half EU population), plus others>IMO this does not magically make it acceptable. They can ask, they should ask. It's a larger version of telling kids "I want" doesn't get.
Rovinghawk said:
My point was that it was a stupid comment from the WHO- of course just grabbing gives more results than getting permission.
IMO this does not magically make it acceptable. They can ask, they should ask. It's a larger version of telling kids "I want" doesn't get.
But in that scenario, "I want" would get if the parents were dead. Hell, the kids could do whatever they liked, again, because the parents are dead.IMO this does not magically make it acceptable. They can ask, they should ask. It's a larger version of telling kids "I want" doesn't get.
Rovinghawk said:
My point was that it was a stupid comment from the WHO- of course just grabbing gives more results than getting permission.
They are still asking. People can still answer "no", and that will be respected.It's just the presumption if you don't bother to answer that's changing.
Rovinghawk said:
It's a larger version of telling kids "I want" doesn't get.
Same as asking a kid if they want a glass of water before bed.Before - <silence> = no water.
After - <silence> = glass of water.
What we appear to be dealing with here is a child that would have answered "yes" if the presumption was "no" - but as soon as the presumption would be "yes", then they'd rather stamp their ickle foot and deliberately pour the water onto the cat, then sulk.
TooMany2cvs said:
It's just the presumption if you don't bother to answer that's changing.
This is what I find unacceptable- whatever happened to leaving things alone without permission? It's not about the rights/wrongs of organ donation, it's about the rights/wrongs of the state doing whatever the hell it pleases.TooMany2cvs said:
Same as asking a kid if they want a glass of water before bed.
No, it's the exact opposite- one is about making an offer, the other is about taking something away without consent.Rovinghawk said:
...
IMO this does not magically make it acceptable. They can ask, they should ask. It's a larger version of telling kids "I want" doesn't get.
They've been asking and the response rates are piss poor, hence the need for change. People are dying needlessly. It's quite likely (extremely likely I would think) that there are people who wouldn't mind donating at all but never got round to filling out a donor form. I can't imagine the vast majority of people having an issue with donating if it helped someone else survive. We are inherently just too lazy/disorganised.IMO this does not magically make it acceptable. They can ask, they should ask. It's a larger version of telling kids "I want" doesn't get.
So if it increases donation rates (as you note, why wouldn't it - although I suspect the quote from WHO was implying that hardly anyone opts out, underscoring the idea that it's just laziness/being disorganised), then what's the problem? As long as there is a mechanism to allow those who want to opt out to actually do so, then where is the issue? The type of person who would be up in arms about this would no doubt be overjoyed about filling in a form as an advertisement of their self empowerment. They'd likely wear the card round their neck.
But IMO unless there is a medical reason why someone cannot donate they very much should be back of the queue in their moment of need.
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