Determining Who Should Receive An Organ Transplant Can

The decision to determine who gets an organ is something that cannot be taken lightly. If proper protocol is not followed, issues such as biasness and judging people based on factors like socioeconomic status may be used to determine this dilemma. For this reason, organ transplantation is overseen by government regulators. The Division of Transplantation (DoT), which falls under the US Department of Health and Human Services, oversees this process. Organs are allocated according to strict rules that take into account physical matching, tissue and blood type matching, medical criteria, waiting time, severity of illness. The allocation system is blind to name, race, sex and wealth. The allocation rules have been developed over many years of deliberation by physicians and other transplant professionals, transplant candidates and recipients, donor families, and representatives of the federal government. (CITE ThIs) Removing these variables and following protocol causes the medical professional to make a decision on fairness rather than feelings, biasness, and possibly corruption such as bribery.

Also, how long a patient has been waiting for an organ is a big factor when choosing who will get which organ

Liver Allocation is an ethical dilemma for healthcare providers and patients. An article published in the American Journal of Critical-Care Nurses entitled “The Power of The Liver Transplant Waiting List: A Case Presentation” discusses a 60 year old woman with cirrhosis was placed on the liver transplant list under the category “status 7”. Status 7 is an inactive state and are considered unsuitable to receive transplant surgery. Liver allocation is done by an organization called the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS), and the way they rank patients to receive a transplant is by a Model End Staged Liver Disease (MELD). It is scored from 6 to 40, and those with a high scores are the ones to receive a liver transplant (Hansen, Yan, and Rosenkranz,

The article “Need an Organ? It Helps to be Rich,” by Joy Victory informs readers of how medical systems work for those who are in need of an organ transplant. In the article, Victory talks about a 34-year-old man named Brian Shane Regions - who is in need of a heart transplant, but is not able to secure one because he is not insured. Therefore, not having insurance, Brian is put into an unfortunate situation because he is simply not getting any treatment for his heart failure. This is a great example of how patients without insurance could not be provided with an organ donor. Victory argues a variety of issues concerning how the organ donation system is unfair to certain people. A transplant cost a bundle amount of money, which leads to the rich only able to have the procedure done. While the poor cannot afford the cost of the transplant, creating an unfair situation for the less fortunate. The transplant centers can do anything as they please because they simply care more about the money. However, not all transplant centers treat their patients unfairly, several centers are truly able to support the uninsured patients in need of a transplant. It is simply unfair for the patients, who do not have enough money to pay for transplant and the medical systems are unethical.

In this paper I will be using the normative theory of utilitarianism as the best defensible approach to increase organ donations. Utilitarianism is a theory that seeks to increase the greatest good for the greatest amount of people (Pense2007, 61). The utilitarian theory is the best approach because it maximizes adult organ donations (which are the greater good) so that the number of lives saved would increase along with the quality of life, and also saves money and time.

Since the National Organ Transplant Act of 1984 prevents a monetary price from being placed on a donated organ, effective allocation mechanisms must be utilized. Allocation mechanisms must be accessed because the shortage of supply compared to the demand. In any market, allocation mechanisms rely on many factors but some include friendships, “under the table” payments, predicted profit, and personal biases.

Available became controversial. While the question of the dialysis machine is still controversial, the health system was caught in another ethical dilemma regarding organ transplantation. Organ transplantation is closely linked to the issue of cleanliness because patients with kidney failure can get an organ transplant as an alternative to hemodialysis. The issue is complicated by the fact Medicare is financed by organ transplant, and there are those who believe that the distribution of rare transplant is not right. There are thousands of terminal patients whose lives can be saved by organ transplantation, but there are no formulas of work that can be used to determine which of the thousands of patients will be given priority. It is left to the discretion of medical officers to decide who is worth saving. The ability to keep someone alive by replacing one or more of their major organs is a splendid achievement of medicine of the 20th century.

Organ transplantation is a term that most people are familiar with. When a person develops the need for a new organ either due to an accident or disease, they receive a transplant, right? No, that 's not always right. When a person needs a new organ, they usually face a long term struggle that they may never see the end of, at least while they are alive. The demand for transplant organs is a challenging problem that many people are working to solve. Countries all over the world face the organ shortage epidemic, and they all have different laws regarding what can be done to solve it. However, no country has been able to create a successful plan without causing moral and ethical dilemmas.

Everyone should have to go through the proper channels and be approved to be placed on the transplant list. Then, they should have to wait until it is their turn to receive the donated organ. The only time that someone should be moved up on the list is if their condition rapidly deteriorates over the course of a couple of days and it is absolutely medically necessary to give them the organ first. That would be the only acceptable way that I could see someone being moved up on the list and I have heard of this happening before.

The current system of acquiring an organ donation is through a wait-list called the allocation system, which was supposed to be resolute. However, there are a few exceptions to the wait list causing this entire system to become even more unfair. For instance, when an organ donor dies his or her organs are more likely to be given to family members on a wait-list rather than those who are actually next in line (Hanto). Wait-lists are meant to be fair because those put on the list first are supposed to get organs first, but how fair is that really? How badly one needs an organ for his or her survival should rank higher than how quickly he or she found about his or her physical defects. Another factor that should be taken into account when placing people onto a wait list is their age. It makes more sense to give younger people a chance at life than prolonging the life of someone who has already lived to a ripe old age, but most supporters of the allocation system will argue that all lives are worth the same, even though there are clear lines between who will benefit more from organ donations.

Researchers state that the computerized matching system does not select recipients based on fame or wealth. Organs are matched by blood and tissue typing, organ size, medical urgency, waiting time, and geographic location.

Every day, 20 people die because they are unable to receive a vital organ transplant that they need to survive. Some of these people are on organ donation lists and some of them are not. The poor and minorities are disproportionately represented among those who do not receive the organs they need. In the United States alone, nearly 116,000 people are on waiting lists for vital organ transplants. Another name is added to this list every 10 minutes. This paper will argue that organ donation should not be optional. Every person who dies, or enters an irreversible vegetative state with little or no brain function, should have his or her organs-more specifically, those among the organs that are suitable for donation-harvested. A single healthy donor who has died can save up to eight lives (American Transplant Foundation).

Innovative advances in the practice of medicine have increased the life span of the average American. This along with the growing population in the United States and has created a shortfall in the number of organs available for transplant today. The current system of allocation used to obtain organs for transplant faces difficulty because of two primary reasons according to Moon (2002). The two perceptions that stop potential organs donors are that the allocation criteria is unfair and favors certain members of society and/or that organs may be allocated to someone who has destroyed their organs by misuse (Moon, 2002). Many individuals decline to donate organs because anyone requiring an organ transplant is placed on a waiting list and it is possible that individuals who have destroyed their organs by their own actions or convicted criminals could receive donated organs before someone whose organs are failing through no fault of their own and positively contribute to society. When a celebrity or wealthy individual requires a transplant they are often viewed as "jumping" the waitlist but

In addition, surgeons have learned how to keep increasingly patients alive longer and how to make more people eligible for transplants. Still, there are shortage of organs donation. According to the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS), a non-profit, scientific and educational organization, organizes transplant registration. 3448 people died in 1995 because organs were not available for them in time. A third to a half of all people on waiting lists die before an organ can be found for them. This shortage raises several difficult ethical problems. How should the limited supply of organs be distributed? Should donors be encouraged to donate by the use of financial incentives? Opponents of the sale of organs point out that the inevitable result will be further exploitation of poor people by the

During the opening, it was mentioned that every age, race and ethnic group is effected and have a need for organ donations. Below are graphs from the US Department of Health & Human Services that clearly illustrate the needs for the waiting recipients. Illustration 1 shows the percentage of waiting candidates by their ethnicity. Statistically, Latinos suffer from obesity which leads to diabetes and heart disease. African Americans suffer higher rate of diabetes and high blood pressure. Asians and Hawaiians reportedly have a higher rate of kidney and liver diseases. Each of these dispositions can lead to other complications effecting the organs and eventually causing organ failure, even with treatment. Illustration 2 show that the people needing an organ donation is not limited to the aged or infirmed but range from newborn to over 65 years old.