Organ Donation

DocK said:

I'm a donor and find it difficult to understand why anybody wouldn't be. I take the attitude that it's no good to me once I'm gone, and could potentially be useful to someone else. Personally I hope all my organs are past their use-by date by the time I shuffle off, but you never know.

My spouse on the other hand isn't a donor, and cannot bear the thought of being sliced up. If it was cheap to be cyrogenically (sp?) frozen after death, then that would definitely his choice. He also refuses to discuss his preferences for funeral as in burial or cremation. Hopefully I'll go first so won't have to guess what he would have preferred - as I'm quite happy to tell him exactly what I want.

Just an example of people having different attitudes. I have no problems what happens to my body once my brain is dead, but spouse finds it very difficult to even consider that he's not immortal

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I think that's so true - we are all different.

And I should point out that I'm not trying to promote organ donation as it's very much a personal decision. Personally, I also have no problem with it and would gladly offer someone else a better quality of life rather than let any of my otherwise useful organs rot or burn. I have only attempted to dispel the myths from my experience.

Boyou, I'm so sorry to hear about your wife, but so glad to know you have at least some comfort in knowing her wishes have allowed another person a better life.

Nothing at all to do with Boyou's wife, but I think most of us would like to think our presence on earth has been useful in some way. The donating of any functional parts of our bodies when we no longer can use them seems a reasonable way to make up for some of the ways we've failed whilst alive.

Thanks for the good vibes,Julia and sails

My feeling about organ donation ,already positive was reinforced when my wife died .It was the single most affirmative occurence in that time of grief.

In fact ,it affirmed the value of all life for me

Needless to say all my bits are up for grabs when I go

ABC Radio had an interesting discussion last night with an Associate Professor whose PhD is on this subject.

I knew the donation rate in Australia was low but was taken aback to learn that it's a mere 14.9 people per million of population!
That's just incredibly low. Why?????

I also think it's wrong that - even when someone has left written instructions that they want to be an organ donor - that person's family can override that. Again, why???

If anyone countermanded my instruction that any still functional bit of me should be used to help someone else, I'd haunt them miserably for ever.

Julia said:

I knew the donation rate in Australia was low but was taken aback to learn that it's a mere 14.9 people per million of population!
That's just incredibly low.

Why?????

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Organ donation should be compulsory for every citizen of Australia, and if you want out, why???
Religion, as an excuse to opt-out is not to be accepted in this instance .... Muhammed/Jesus/Buddha doesn't count.
We are talking about 'real' human life to help another human life in this situation

Julia said:

I knew the donation rate in Australia was low but was taken aback to learn that it's a mere 14.9 people per million of population!
That's just incredibly low.

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Not just incredibly LOW, Julia,
I'd say the figure is incredible - full stop.
Let's see, there's about 22M Australians, that would mean only 330 donors? Surely, Auntie got her facts garbled - unlikely as it seems (NOT!)
Maybe they referred to organ transplants per month or year maybe? As an annual figure, that would still seem low, but maybe it only includes "major" transplants.

fwiw, I have the impression that the administration of voluntary donors is in a big mess. Initially, there was a Donor Register under the care of - I think it was the Lions' Eye Institute, and they only asked for corneas. So, we registered and got a card to stick next to our drivers license, just in case. Then another mob asked us to register for kidneys, I believe it was. Then there were still more boxes to tick, including tissue for medical research - I remember ticking them all, adding they could use my carcass for anything that assisted advancement of medicine - except to let my brain die unexperimented.
Then came the tick on the drivers license itself - seemingly superseding earlier registrations and requests. Has it? What's the legal status now? And who decides what's going to happen?

About two years ago, my wife and I took matters one step further and donated our bodies to the Medical Faculty at UWA. We asked our GPs to place a note to that effect on their medical records; we also carry - yet another - laminated card with pertinent instructions next to our drivers licenses. And we hope that, in that small fashion, we can contribute to med students' training and education. Seems a far better and useful arrangement than the indignity of being wasted as worm food.
And had the teachers of Old, whom Dannyboy mentioned, known what today's medical science is capable of, I'm sure they would have issued a commandment "Thou shalt not let thy carcass go to waste."
If they were really as omniscient and benevolent as their followers claim they were - Why didn't they foresee today's need and leave clear instructions even so?

DB008 said:

Organ donation should be compulsory for every citizen of Australia, and if you want out, why???
Religion, as an excuse to opt-out is not to be accepted in this instance .... Muhammed/Jesus/Buddha doesn't count.
We are talking about 'real' human life to help another human life in this situation

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Danny, interestingly the Ass Professor referred to earlier said all the major religions have endorsed organ donations, so people claiming religious reasons for opting out are being completely disingenuous.

pixel said:

Not just incredibly LOW, Julia,
I'd say the figure is incredible - full stop.
Let's see, there's about 22M Australians, that would mean only 330 donors? Surely, Auntie got her facts garbled - unlikely as it seems (NOT!)

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Pixel, it wasn't an ABC employee who made this statement: it was the Associate Professor who has for some years been an organ transplant liaison officer in hospitals. She is currently attached to the University of Canberra.

Here is verification of the "incredible" figure
http://www.donatelife.gov.au/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=672&Itemid=159

From the above site:

Australians' donor record in 2011
The following statistics on organ donation in Australia have been compiled from the
Australian and New Zealand Organ Donor Registry (ANZOD). These figures will be
added to on publication of ANZOD’s annual report.
For more information, visit www.anzdata.org.au

* 337 donors donated to 1001 recipients
* The average Australian donor rate was 14.9 donors per million people.

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Instead of carrying different cards which may or may not be taken notice of, you might like to register with the official organ donation register at Medicare.

http://www.medicareaustralia.gov.au/public/services/aodr/register.jsp

Thanks for your clarification, Julia;

* 337 donors donated to 1001 recipients
* The average Australian donor rate was 14.9 donors per million people.

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that makes more sense and matches how I interpreted the figures:
There are more than 337 registered donors, but most of them have had the good fortune to still be alive. "Donation rate" seemed to imply that only 14.9 in a Million were willing to donate.

It would be interesting to know what the percentage of "willing donors" might be; I suspect though that too is way below par. Except for certain people with communicable tissue-borne diseases, a truly civilised society ought to get close to 100%.

I always thought we should be in an opt out system rather than an opt in, so if people dont want to be a donor, they let them know rather than the other way around.

People can be lazy and I think alot of times dont think to organise these things.