Allotments 4 All

I think that Moonbeam's idea is a 24carat gold WINNA! 8) If peeps need a carrot, what better one than this? All the ever-increasing funeral expenses settled, leaving loved ones to have a memorial service?  Yep! Way to Go (so to speak.....) :o ;) ;D

They're going to put my ashes on the compost anyway  :o :o :o

I think I'm the first dissenting voice on this thread.  We all imagine, don't we, death after a short illness, bravely borne.  Or perhaps sudden obliteration in an accident.

The reality is very often of course horribly different.

I'm afraid that I don't trust the NHS not to remove organs from those who still have a chance of recovery, nor not to hasten the end of someone who has slipped into unconsciousness.

I don't imagine that anyone would bump me off for the sake of my aged bits, but I fear for my children, whose organs would be worth harvesting.

So I'm on the side of opt-in.

The response here has been a bit of a shock, so many like minded people.
Does ANY-one think that donation is wrong? If so, let's be knowing why.
If not, then I wonder how many others think the same way, and why this supported idea isn't taken as the norm.
Is there a fear organs are taken before death, or could it be a religious thing?

ps: Just posted as you did, M. I looked into what you say and the situation (In Britain) is that the Doner Team cannot have access to a 'body' until death has been declared by a medical team which must follow legal criteria.
The fact that a potential doner is imminent does not alter medical care in the UK.
Ken.

Quote from: debster on September 06, 2008, 16:19:49
please those that have voted opt out consider joining the organ donor register and let your family know what you want dont leave it til its too late

I do, and they know, but then what they choose to do with me when I am not more is really up to them.  However, I will come back and haunt them if they don't throw my ashes to the wind at Westward Ho! .

I think the it should definitely be opt out my mums best friend died last year after waiting 12 years for a kidney transplant leaving her 4 kids without a mum ( 13,15.19and 20) and her first granchild to never see her gran she was prepped 7 times to have a transplant only for the next ok kin to back out. every one we know was tested and no one was a mach.

also the bravest person I know gave birth to a beautifully little girl who sadly passed away 3 days later. she let the doctors use her baby's organs and finds getting thorough each day a little easier knowing other children have been given the chance at life thought that gift .

as well as being a blood Donner you can go on the bone marrow register to possibly save a persons (usually a child) life who has leukemia. It involves a 15 min op and a half inch scar if you are found to be a mach so if you can ask next time you give blood or see your GP

Quote from: trinity on September 09, 2008, 23:33:59

...  she was prepped 7 times to have a transplant only for the next ok kin to back out.

... every one we know was tested and no one was a match.

I'm not sure how that would happen.

If this was a live organ donation, there is month and months of consultation/councilling/debate/sole

searching and opportunities to back out. It's very unusual for someone to back out at the last moment

and to waste NHS resource.

If no one was a match then I presume that it wasn't a live organ donation in which case
once concent for the none beating donor has been granted, the organs /tissue are harvested and
checked to see if they will make viable transplants.

They are then tissue typed (blood type, antibodies, chromosomes etc). This is then faxed to the
transplant centre database at Bristol, who then cross-match and select suitable recipeint(s) on strict
and agreed criteria.

The hospital where the recipeint has selected to have the transplant done is contacted and informed.
It is they who then have the responsibility of contacting the recipient and prepping them. (ie get the
recipients ok to go ahead, check for any infections or illnesses & re-tissue typing them to double check
compatibility).

There's a lot that goes on before the recipeint even is aware that they may be called in.

I give blood.  Started about 18 months ago - took me a long while to get around to donating.  Turns out I have O- which is one of the rarer groups but can be given to almost anyone. However, I can only receive O-  ....  I really should have started donating 30 years ago and helped so many people like me - but I didn't get around to it and I can't change that now.

I would like someone (or several someones) to possibly benefit when I shake off my mortal coils - but haven't yet taken any action to let anyone know and if the truth be known, I expect that I will think about this for a couple of days and have great intentions - but ....

I don't consider myself to be especially different from the majority (that's rather sad to say isn't it?) so I fully expect the majority of folk to feel similarly about this and to take the same actions - that is - forget to register, just not get around to it.  So .... we should all be subject to an opt out (with all the existing safeguards to prevent further hurting of family) it would mean that most folk actually do what they would rather like to do.

[I'm not normally in favour of the goverment, or any other authority, dictating to us - but this could be exception that most would probably welcome] .

I first gave blood, (APos) way back in '63 'cos I got 2 cans of beer! That was my first. One time I gave blood pretty much direct to a Gurkha soldier in Borneo, that was quite a thing, me on the top bunk, him on the bottom with a collecting bottle mid-way! I donated regularly for many years but it was for a cuppa and a biscuit, not a beer! I have a gold medal thingy for filling so many bags.
I certainly didn't miss the donated blood and some one got at least as big a kick out of receiving as I did getting the beer/tea and bikkies!
(No! It doesn't hurt.)

I've given blood since I was old enough, but I've managed to wangle a rebate.

;)

Quote from: kenkew on September 11, 2008, 20:36:05
(No! It doesn't hurt.)

Yes it does!  the last time I gave blood they stuck the needle in the nerve instead of the vein.  I hit the ceiling and never gave blood again (They'd had over a gallon from me by then anyway).  Apparently it doesn't happen often.  :o :o :o

For me personally I would say opt in but generally I would have to say opt out for the many folks out there who are simply not able to understand the opt out concept and won't.

In Canada there is a place on the driving license to opt in,and if you choose to do so it' s put on by the Canadian equivalent of our DVLA so it right there with you

When I first passed my driving test - all them years ago - there was a detachable section on the licence, on which you could declare yourself as an organ donor. Apparently they only did it for a for years and then stopped.

A side effect of this was the 'detachable' bit. It clearly stated on my official bit of paper "Tear down dotted line". My car has been doing just that ever since.

My OH has always had a donor card but I was always unsure, one year we went on holiday to Rhodes and met  a newly married couple and we hit it off straight away mind you I was sat next to them for 3 hours so they could hardly get away. Anyway when we got to know the fella a bit better I asked how he got all his scars, he said that he had a motorbike accident years ago and was in a coma, because he had a donor card the hospital asked the family about switching the machine off so the organs could be used, but his parents said that there was still some family who had yet to visit so they wouldn't let them go ahead,  three days later he came out of the coma  he no longer has a donor card, and in his own parents words they seeed a bit eager to turn the machine off, so I can echo Melbourne's thoughts, but every one to their own.  :-\ ???     ;D ;D ;D

Opt-in here. No system is perfect but can you imagine how an opt-out system will be dead in the water when the first case of someone's organs are transplanted to someone and it is later discovered that the dead person was against organ donation. It will happen, you can bet on it. Think of the ethical dilemma of a recipient who discovers the organs they received came from someone who opposed giving their organs. It's repugnant. The recipient must be secure in the knowledge that the organ they received was a gift - there can be no room for doubt. The system cannot rely on an opt-out card because people who do not want their organs taken may forget their card. Any system with a central database run by the government will be poorly managed and contain incorrect information as is typical for all government run databases.

The opt-out system (in reality presumed ownership) is nothing but a policy based in laziness. The government and the NHS don't do enough to support the current system or educate people. Every time you go to a doctor or dentist you should be given a leaflet and card. Why don't the government send out 20 or 30 million leaflets and cards one year in the post - surely it is worth the investment. A couple of years of that there will be hundreds of thousands if not millions more donors. It's not true that opt-out systems provide more organs. For example Sweden has fewer organs available than the UK because so many Swedes opted-out. In Spain family members can still refuse organ donation but what is different is the culture of organ donation in that only 10% of Spaniards refuse whereas in the UK 40% refuse organ donation when asked.

Even the medical profession are divided, recent surveys showing that just over half of all surgeons are against an opt-out system.

My body belongs to me. It is the most valuable and personal possession I have. When I die my will is the legal document which stipulates what happens to my other possessions. Even after death they belong to myself in the name of my executor. The government has no right to presume ownership of my body regardless of my death and I believe I should have the fundamental right for my body to remain untouched without my explicit, documented consent.

Yes that's all very well, but your body isn't yours after you die, nor is it the Government's, technically it becomes the property of your next of kin. So you can have your wishes set out in a written will, explained in person via a living will or spray painted in glitter on a banner the size of Malta, but in the UK, if your next of kin says different, that's it.

I've always carried a donor card and everyone's well aware of my wishes but, just to make sure (call it an incentive), my will stipulates quite clearly that anything I leave is entirely dependent on my wishes being carried out. In any case I think it would be the height of disrespect for them to do otherwise.

Labrat

Whilst, of course, your opinions and concerns are valid and should be expressed/debated; opting out has been the way in most of mainland Europe now for many years and there is no movement to change this system.

Ethical dilemmas are no more common in other countries than in this. You have the right to express your wishes against and for donation, and provided, at the required time,  they are made clear, they will be followed.

Amazin
It is all very well expressing your wishes within a Will, but organs need to be harvested before blood starts to congeal, after that they are useless. Donor wishes need to found on the body at time of death or be given by relatives very soon after.

Pesky Wabbit i think the point Amazin was making is tthat every one knows that Amazin wants to be a donor so if they go against that wish they will not be getting anything in the will

lbb