Journalist Joe Gardyasz: The Logic Behind The Organ Donation System

The need of human organs for transplantation increases every single day and every passing month. Thousands of people are on the waiting list hoping for a chance at a new life. Unfortunately, the supply of available organs through organ donations is not able to provide for the growing demand of organs. According to a research conducted by the Hasting Center, “there are close to 100,000 people on the waiting list for a kidney, heart, liver, lung, and intestines, the pressure to find ways to increase their supply is enormous (Capland, 2014, p. 214). The shortage of human organs is leading people to participate in unethical acts. The pressure of finding available organs has resulted in healthcare professional and

The misinformation of organ donation is the first cause of why people do not want to sign up to become organ donors. People have the mentality that in case of an accident, if they happened to be organ donors, first responders and doctors are not going to try to save their live. This is only a myth because under any circumstances doctors and staff will work very hard to try to save any life. Another fear is that a patient won’t be dead. Which is also a myth. If the patient is a donor more testing is perform at no cost to make sure the patient is not alive. Other questions that people often use as an excuse is that they might be too young or too old to be donors. Furthermore, the concern that their families will be charge for the cost of the

Despite these results, less than 20% of Canadians have actually made arrangements to donate their organs and tissues. According to Gill & Cole, Canada is often mentioned as having one of the worst donation percentages in the developed world (2008). This needs to change in a big way and one major step in the right direction is holding a registration drive. The aim of an organ donation registration drive is to spread awareness about the importance of registering consent for organ and tissue donation. Unlike the United States, Canada does not have a national registry for those in need of organs or for those willing to donate. Instead, transplant services are divided into provincial organizations. Each province has it own organ donation and transplant system (ODTS) and organ procurement organization (OPO) (Gill & Cole & Shemie,

“6,935 people are dying because they had to wait. That’s 19 people dying per day for an entire year”(Barry). That’s nearly 7,000 lives; which is equivalent to to almost 25% of the current undergraduate body here at UW-Madison. According to Dr. Chris Barry, a transplant surgeon and researcher at the University of Rochester Medical Center, “19 people die per day on the organ donor recipient list because there aren’t enough people signing their organ donor consent forms”. He proposes that we need to increase people's knowledge and tear down the myths and barriers of organ donation to facilitate their decision to donate.

The shortage of organ transplants has been an ongoing crisis for years; the growing list of patients awaiting transplants has no end in sight, and the number of people dying while they waste away on the waiting list is not going to go down unless something changes.Society has turned away from alternatives to our archaic organ donation program, but there are other options available.The transplant community and society as a whole need to step back and rethink--to adopt a more open-minded views on organs as a resource in order to save lives and make meaningful changes to the national transplant program.

Currently, there are over 120,000 Americans on the waiting list to receive an organ (Alter). This incredibly high number of people in need of an organ transplant is the tragic outcome of the National Organ Transplant Act of 1984, which prohibited the sale of human organs and almost all forms of compensation (Monti). The act was originally intended to prevent exploitation of the poor, who found that selling their own organs to the wealthy was a quick and easy way to earn large amounts of money. Over the years, it became more evident that banning organ donor compensation actually discriminated against the poor rather than protected them, by ensuring that only the wealthy could afford such operations. Since the act went into effect, the demand for organs has greatly increased by a whopping 1,200% while the supply for organs has basically remained

The current system of the United States as well as most of Europe for organ obtaining is through presumed refusal, which is also known as the “opt-in” system. In this system a person’s organs cannot and, “will not be removed from his/her postmortem body unless he/she has explicitly consented to this being done.” (Taylor 383) Under this system, citizens must “opt-in” to become organ donors by registering to become donors. Consequently, this method of obtaining organs does not produce very many organs up for donation. This is true for a variety of reasons, which is why many are suggesting the United States should adopt a new system of presumed consent. Totally opposed to presumed refusal, “under presumed consent it is presumed that persons would prefer to donate their organs for transplantation after their death” (Taylor 383).

It is estimated that roughly 8,000 people die waiting on the transplant list each year. Our current system that resembles an opt-in system proves to be flawed considering it aids the tragic imbalance between need for and supply of transplantable organs. The President’s Commission on Bioethics has identified varying strategies for organ procurement that include the opt-out approach, a financial inducement model, and an organ market- and some scholars have suggested changing the standard of death to higher brain death. It is in my opinion that the most sound alternative to improve the organ deficit in the United States is to implement the opt-out model. This model promises an increase in transplantable organs that would in hopes off-set the many lives lost due to insufficient supply.

Let’s begin with a possible solution is to activate an opt out policy in each state. Richard Brodsky wants to change the way the New York organ donation system works. He believes that this system could help increase organ and tissue donations. The proposal would require that people be automatically added to the state donor registry unless they opt out when they get a driver’s licenses or state identification card. Richard says his bill has sparked a lot of interest but that he knows both individuals and religious groups have raised concerns. Mary baily a member of the Hastings Center, stated that it’s easy to see this would not go over well with Americans at a time when many are pushing against government control on a variety of other issues. UCLA professor and medical doctor, Gabriel Danovitch testified before the U.S. House of Foreign Affairs in 2012 that there are several things the U.S. government can do. He begins by stating that the National organ

This showed that opt-in defaults result in lower organ donor rates because people must go out and physically fill out forms, make phone calls, or send mail

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

Main Point 1: Organ donation is such a simple and selfless action one takes to save the lives of others. Now much of what we will we discuss, also applies to living donation, but we will focus on deceased donation. The number of patients waiting for organs far exceeds the number of people who have registered to become organ donors. According to UNOS, every 10 minutes, a new name is added to the national transplant list. 20 people die everyday from the lack of available organs. Just one deceased person, can save up to 8 lives, 9 lives if you split the liver. Now if you donate tissues, you can improve the lives of up to 50 people! The need for organ donation is growing every minute. You can see why we need to register.

In the United States today, people lose their lives to many different causes. Though this is tragic, there are also a large group of people who could benefit from these deaths; and those people are people in need of an organ transplant. Although a sudden or tragic death can be heart breaking to a family, they could feel some relief by using their loved ones' organs to save the lives of many others. This act of kindness, though, can only be done with consent of both the victim and the family; making the donation of organs happen much less than is needed. The need for organs is growing every day, but the amount provided just is not keeping up. Because of the great lack of organ donors, the constant need for organs,

Relevance: Organ donation, being controversial as it is, does not have enough information out into the public in order for the people to make a concise opinion/idea about the polemic topic. Whether people are for or against it, there should be done somewhat of a research to at least be briefly informed/familiarized rather than being influenced by myths or false accusations of said topic. As a result when renewing a State ID people often do not check for Organ Donor because of the poor information out there, as well as other people do check for Organ Donor without knowing of the consequences it holds.

The notion of informed consent is a factor contributing to the lower donation rate. The driver license is merely and “indication of intent” and not regarded as informed consent (MoH, 2016a). As a result the Ministry of Health (2016a) indicates that a non-binding system is used in hospitals, where the family members of the deceased make the final decision regarding organ donation. Another factor is that, less than 1% of deaths result in viable organs for donation (MoH, 2016b). Organs that can be donated must come from a person who died in hospital either through brain death or cardiac death.