Surgeons in America are possibly about to get a new set of guidelines as far as organ donation is concerned. If these new guidelines are adopted the definitions of death and patient rights will be redefined. In our modern society the rights of the individual are overshadowed by the rights and dictates of the experts. With the current organ donor regulations there are a number of tests and consents that need to be performed in order to confirm death before organs can be taken from a patient for donation. The new regulations being considered will destroy the rights of sick patients, and even possibly lead to undue deaths and (horrifically) organ harvesting. The question is how long will it take doctors to begin to weigh the benefits of the profits of an organ donation/transplant or struggling to keep a patient alive, possibly saving their life. The new guide lines would include:
- After the donor's heart has stopped surgeons will not have to wait to make sure it doesn't start beating again before removing organs
- Ban on considering anyone to be a potential donor before doctors and family members have independently decided to stop trying to save them will be eliminated
- Confirmatory tests will no longer have to be performed to assure the family and the hospital professional staff that the patient is dead
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Surgeons won't have to wait to make sure a heart has stopped beating before harvesting organs under new guidelines
Surgeons retrieving organs to be transplanted just after a patient's heart has stopped beating will no longer have to wait to make sure it doesn't start up again if new proposals are adopted.At present when doctors are retrieving organs they have to wait at least two minutes to ensure it doesn't spontaneously start again.
Critics now fear seriously ill patients could be viewed more like tissue banks than sick people if the plans to change rules about organ donation go ahead.
Rush for organs: Surgeons would not have to wait to see if a donor's heart starts beating again before harvesting organs if new proposals go ahead
That is poised to be eliminated if the plans by the group that co-ordinates organ allocation in the United States are adopted.
The proposed changes by the United Network for Organ Sharing, the Richmond nonprofit organization that coordinates organ donation under a contract with the federal government, are part of the first major overhaul of the 2007 guidelines governing “donation after cardiac death,” or DCD, which accounted for 6% of the 28,000 organs transplanted in 2010.
Serious concerns: Critics fear patients will be treated more like tissue banks than critically ill people if rules change
KEY POINTS OF NEW GUIDELINES
- After the donor's heart has stopped surgeons will not have to wait to make sure it doesn't start beating again before removing organs
- Ban on considering anyone to be a potential donor before doctors and family members have independently decided to stop trying to save them will be eliminated
- Confirmatory tests will no longer have to be performed to assure the family and the hospital professional staff that the patient is dead.
Critics, however, say the move heightens the risk that potential donors will be treated more like tissue banks than like sick people deserving every chance to live, or to die peacefully.
Michael A. Grodin, a professor of health law, bioethics and human rights at Boston University, said: 'This is another step towards this idea of hovering, hovering, hovering to get more organs. The bottom line is that they want to do everything they can to increase organ donation.'
Benefits: Proponents say the new rules better ensure that the wishes of donors are honoured without sacrificing necessary protections
It was drafted over a year by the 22-member UNOS organ procurement organization committee.
The UNOS board will convene in November in Atlanta to finalize the revisions, which include officially shifting the guidelines from 'model elements' to 'requirements.'
'We want the process to happen the way it’s supposed to happen to avoid any questions or problems,' Alexander said.
Desperate need: There are more than 112,000 people waiting for transplants in America today
DCD had been the norm for organ donors before 'brain death' became the standard in the early 1970s. Since then, most donors have been brain-dead.
But as the number of people needing transplants rose, doctors in the 1990s began reviving what was then called 'non-beating heart' donation.
DCD has become a growing source of organs as the gap between the number of patients waiting for transplants and the number of available organs has widened.
About 6,000 Americans die each year while waiting for donated organs. There were almost 14,000 transplants between January and June this year with just under 7,000 donors.
The current waiting list for transplants stands at more than 112,000 people.
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