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15 comments:
http://www.gsds.org/newsroom/stats_facts.html
Organ transplant is considered to be a huge life-changing process for many people. It is the process by which an organ is donated by a 'donor' and given to a patient who needs it (aka the 'recipient').
Every year in the US, more than 98,000 people await for an organ transplant. However, this procedure is very complicated in many steps. First of all, this country lacks the amount of donors out there. Secondly, once a donor is found, it is very tough to find a perfect match so the organ can be given to the recipient.
The lack of donors is actually the major problem in this situation. This low rate of donors is due to many factors, some of which still dont make much sense. Usually, people sign up to be donors when they turn 18 or 21 (depending on what state they live in). And once they die, their organs are transplanted and given to those who need it. We need to aware the public more in the sense that we need more donors. Some nations have also provided donors with many incentives and this has raised the amount of donors who are willing to donate organs to patients. The US as a nation does not take this problems seriously because according to research, the number of patients who need an organ rises by about 1000 patients per month while the amount of donors stay constant at about 60-80per month.
Evidently, there aren't enough donors out there for even 10% of the patients and this is just something that the government needs to enforce more. Countries such as the Phillipines, Cambodia, etc. provide extra incentives to families of organ donors and hence, the patient to donor ratio there is much better there than in the United States.
The link that I have provided discusses a lot of the facts and important points about organ transplants and donors in the United States.
http://media.www.louisvillecardinal.com/media/storage/paper964/news/2007/01/16/Opinion/Lack-Of.Incentives.Drives.Down.Human.Organ.Donation-2632877.shtml
The reason why there is a lack of donors seem to be due to the lack of incentives in becoming an organ donor.
First, people believe that donating organs will disfigure the body, thus making an open-casket funeral very awkward.
Second, the organ donor's family must consent to the donation as well.
Thirdly, though organ donation helps others, there is no immediate benefit for oneself. The article points out that if the U.S. legalized the sale of organs, the available amount of organs will rise.
Bob's heart donor is from North Carolina and they transferred the heart back to New York for Bob's heart transplant. Fortunately, the transplant was successful at the end.
Over 79000 patients in the US are waiting for organ transplant and that number increases every month.
It is estimated that 10000 to 14000 who die every year meet the criteria for organ donationa and only half of them become organ donors. Organs then need to be transferred to various places in need but most organs can't be preserved for long. These complications increase the difficulty in organ transplant.
http://www.house.gov/mcdermott/kidneycaucus/25facts.html
Heart transplantation certainly is a major advance in surgical procedures today. I noticed that in order to have a successful heart transplant program it is recommended that at least 14 heart transplants be performed annually. Johns Hopkins University is a leading institution performing these procedures. One year survival rates following heart transplant is more than 90 percent! The average cost of a heart transplant runs as high as $260,000. More than 2000 people undergo heart transplants each year in the United States.
http://todaysseniorsnetwork.com/heart_surgery_numbers.htm
http://yourtotalhealth.ivillage.com/heart-transplant-surgery.html?pageNum=2#2
http://yourtotalhealth.ivillage.com/heart-transplant-surgery.html?pageNum=3
http://yourtotalhealth.ivillage.com/heart-transplant-surgery.html?pageNum=8#8
Heart transplants are only performed on patients who have an irreversible disease. The ratio between those who need a new heart and those who are willing to donate their heart is disproportionate, which makes it very difficult to have the procedure done. Most of the transplants are for Caucasian males between the age of 50 and 65. However, the hardest time during the process of a heart transplant is actually waiting for a heart. Some patients like Bob end up using devices like ventricular assist device (VAD), which helps the ventricles pump blood until a replacement heart come along.
Some people can wait for a long period of time because donors are not common enough. A donor is someone who gives his or her consent to donate specific organs to those who need it after they die, or their next kin gives the ok to give to someone else in dire need of an organ. To become a donor one has to sign a donor form and keep it with them at all times. It is encouraged for healthy adults over the age of 18 to become donors because of the major shortage of necessary transplant organs.
It was not until 1950s that organ transplants began to be a successful operation. Organ transplants allow patients to continue their lives in happiness.
Nowadays having a successful organ transplant is no longer the problem. The problem is having a supply of organs to donate. Since there isn't the supply patients are forced to wait long periods of times for their donors. Sometimes its too late because of their condition.
There are 4 major types of organ transplants : kidney, heart, lungs and liver. For both kidney and livers the donors can be live donors. This is because some people are born with an extra kidney. For livers, they usually regenerate if donated. Lungs can have a live donor, but it is usually very rare to find those cases.
On the other hand, the heart, pancreas, double lung, or a cornea transplant needs a cadaverous. Those who are accepted are those that are usually brain dead. These people have perfectly functioning organs.
http://health.howstuffworks.com/organ-transplant.htm
http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2008/04/financial-compe.html
The link is for an interesting article on financial compensation for organ donation. The article explains how Iran has legalized financial payments to kidney donors. Currently Iran is the only country that does this. I think this brings up two interesting points. First, according to the article the Iranian system of paying organ donors has helped greatly. Since payments have become legalized, thousands of lives have been saved. I think this is a good idea because it will motivate people to donate their organs who otherwise might not have. However, there are also some ethical concerns. The donors are paid $1,200 by the government. This makes it seem like the organ donations have now become organ sales. Also, the person receiving the organ is allowed to pay the donor. This could possibly make it so the richer patients could get higher priority for organs by persuading donors with more money while the poorer patients could be left behind. Overall I thought this was an interesting article. The article seems think that the legalization of payments to donors is a good idea. I also thought it was a good idea when I read it because it increased the number or donors and saved lives. However, after I read the sentence stating that the patients receiving the organs are allowed to pay the donors, it made me wonder if the richer patients would gain an advantage over poorer patients.
I chose to research a little bit on forced donations and donations gone wrong. I guess in China 95% of their organ transplants come from executed prisoners in their jails. In China it was ruled that prisoners do not have the choice whether or not to give their consent to the donation of their organs. Because they are prisoners their rights are taken from them. The lack of public organ donation programs in China is used as a justification for this practice. People in the US and other countries are actually flocking to countries such as China and countries doing the same thing because the chance of getting an organ donation there is higher that in countries with strict match requirements and availability. I also read some interesting articles about how desperate some people were to get organs, that other people were forced against their will to donate organs. I read one article about a guy who was suspected of murdering his neighbor in order to receive his organs. Other articles about family members who gave their lives to save their children also appeared.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_transplant#Forced_donation
I decided to research on small intestine transplants which are not very common. They are usually conducted on children between the ages of one and five. They are also sometimes performed on adults between the ages of 18 and 34. Intestinal transplant is an operation that replaces a small diseased intestine with that of a healthy person. It is performed on children who have short bowel syndrome also known as intestinal failure . In order for a child to be approved for intestinal surgery they must undergo an extensive evaluation. Once that is completed the doctor will decide whether it is urgent that the child be put on the list for a transplant. The transplant itself typically takes three hours and the organs are usually taken from deceased donors. After the surgery the child must get routine checkups because it is typical for the body to reject the organ because it views the new intestine as a threat to the system. Systems can include fever, blood in stool, abdominal pain, and an enlarged abdomen. The success rate of intestinal transplantation is 88% which in high on the scale of organ transplantation.
According to U.S government information on organ, there are about 98,864 patients waiting for organ donation. But only about 77 people can get organ transplent a day.
Heart transplant is simply replacing heart organ from donor to recipient. But, it is very complicated procedure when it really comes down to operation. First, medical team has to harvest heart from donor. After they remove the heart, they keep it with ice. And they transport heart by airplane or helicopter to recipent's hospital. As soon as donor's heart arrives, it can replace to recipent's body.
However, not always heart transplent is successful. There are 10 percents of people die after one year of heart transplent. The complication of heart transplent is our defense mechanism. Defanse mechanism is our immune system that fight against from foreign tissue such as bacteria and virus. So defense mechanism attacks transplanted heart, because it does not recognize. And it lead to rejection of transplanted heart from body.
Websites:
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/organ-donation/FL00077
http://www.medicinenet.com/heart_transplant/page4.htm
From the second part of the video I feel relieved to know that Bob was able to find a donor and live longer.
Many people die waiting for a heart transplant, because of reasons besides that there aren't enough donors out there. According to Dr. Lori West, head of the heart transplant program in canada, says that sometimes there is a reluctance in medical personnels to approach families who are facing loss of a family memeber, to approach them and ask for heart donoation. In other cases of young children, who needs a heart transplant, there maybe older hearts available for them, but these hearts presents problems because they are not small enough for the child.
Another reason why heart donors are so hard to find, is because usually they maybe dieing of a disease that causes an infection in blood resulting in a an infection in the heart, and therefore placing a sick heart in a different persons body would result would cause more problems in the donor recipients body.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/10/061018094937.htm
Over the last 10 years, 375 Canadians have died waiting for a heart transplant.
http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2004/09/22/heart_xplants040922.html
According to these two websites, there are laws about donation and translation of organs. Because there is such a large gap between those who are donating and those who need transplants, there tends to be illegal trade amongst the medical world. In some countries kidneys are sold through the black market and in others organs can be taken from patients without consent. In the United States it is illegal for doctors to take organs without legal consent from the patient or their families. Under Organ Transplant Laws, in the wikipedia website, with different values and ethics throughout the world, each country deals with donations and transplants differently.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_transplant#Organ_transplant_laws
In this article, Chinese doctors are being accused for taking organs from prisoners who are going to be executed. China rebuttals by explaining that it is the same as if they were not prisoners and consent is taken. There is a shortage throughout the world, some people go to other countries for their transplant because there may be a higher chance of getting an organ elsewhere, but it is the same now. Organs are at a shortage where many people are in great need for them. There is a question of whether it is ethical to take someone else's organs, when he or she does not give consent, but what if the person in need of the transplant is your loved one? Great lengths would be taken for organs to be taken, even illegal ones.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6534363.stm
I found a lot of information available concerning organ donations. I learned that organ donation and transplantation is when organs or tissues are put into another person’s body. The number of people needing a transplant continues to rise faster than the number of donors. Each day about 77 people receive organ transplants. However, 18 people die each day waiting for transplants. Currently there are 92,000 people on the waiting list. Kidneys, hearts, livers, lungs, pancreas, intensines, cornea, skin, bone, and bone marrow are the organs and tissues that can be donated. The process for receiving an organ for transplantation is as follows: your doctor will help you get on the national waiting list then you need to visit a transplant hospital and the doctor will see if you meet the criteria to be on the list, and experts say the hardest part is waiting because there is no way of knowing how long you can be waiting for. Finally, your name is added to a pool of names.
This information can be found on: http://www.womenshealth.gov/faq/organ_donation.htm#a
http://media.www.louisvillecardinal.com/media/storage/paper964/news/2007/01/16/Opinion/Lack-Of.Incentives.Drives.Down.Human.Organ.Donation-2632877.shtml
There is a lack or organ donors because...
1. Many states requires that the donor's family need to consent even though the donor has already consented by placing a sticker on their drivers license.
2. Even though donor's have a sticker, they still need to fill out a donor card and carry it with them at all time.
3. The sale of organ's is illegal.
4. Some people are scared that their organs will be dismantled, and therefore not being able to have a open casket during the funeral.
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