Organs donation

Imagine you are in a hospital room with someone of your family who is dying. And in the next
room also you know there is someone else dying. Which is the difference? The person you
love is dying because one of his organs is not useful anymore and the person next door simply
cannot be saved. How would you feel to know that actually that person could be the donor for
your friend or that someone of your family?

Organs Donation is a vital means of sustaining the lives of human beings who have lost
function in one or more organs. It involves the replacement of diseased and defective organs
and tissues with healthy ones from donors. The commonly transplanted organs are kidneys,
heart, liver, lungs and pancreas while the transplantable tissues are eyes, bone, skin and heart
valves. Thus a single donor can save the lives of a number of people.

In different countries there have been passed several regulations according to this aspect. It
doesn’t matter if the countries are developed or non-developed; there are all over the world a
huge number of people that need an organ transplant. However, there still remains a
resistance for the public at large to become organ donors. For a person that is healthy it is
almost impossible to perceive the pain, depression, the condition of feeling like you can’t do
anything and how difficult it is to know a part of your body isn’t able to work correctly
anymore. This is mainly how the terminal ill people feel. Due to reasons such as lack of
information and distrust, many people who can be donors or their families refuse to donate
organs that are no longer more useful for the donor.

A very common situation regarding organs donation is when the family of the donors which in
life accepted to donate their organs but the family just doesn’t accept it. And the most difficult
case occurs when a person’s brain has been damaged or he suffered a traumatism and they
are in a vegetal state. Depending on the area, family may be required to give final consent to
organ donation even if the wishes of one who has died are already known. Fear is also induced
because of the public at large not understanding that physiological death is a process and not
an instant condition. Family may see an accident victim breathing because of a ventilator and
not understand that that brain function has ceased. Hearing the heart monitor and seeing the
lungs expand tells the senses of the layman that life still exists in the body. Technically that is
accurate. The body is still alive, but the seat of humanity which is the brain is gone. In this case
it is more difficult because the family continues having expectations about the state of the
patient when it is already known that he will never recover. In these cases the majority of the
people refuse to donate organs because even in some situations they feel like they are their
loved person.

Due to the lack of donors many people desperate to get the organ that the person of his
family need, resort to the black market and buy organs that are infected. This is another reason
why many people refuse to organ donation because they believe that every organ that is
transplanted is infected or damaged.

Talking about the statistics, for example in México, according to the Registro Nacional de
Trasplantes, the last year there was approximately 12 thousand people in the waiting list. In
Malaysia, located in Southeast Asia and which is a newly industrialized market economy, the
number of people waiting for a transplant of a certain organ or tissue according to the
National Transplant Resource Center, is approximately 16 thousand people. In the US
according to the United Network for Organ Sharing, 84 thousand people need an organ
transplant up today.

And as a general data, records show that families who have pledged their loved ones’ organs
have so far been from the low-income group. Actually an ironic data is that in many countries
the waiting list is addressed from families that pay more to families that pay less or just don’t
pay anything. It doesn’t matter if one of these last persons needs the organ with more
urgency. It is not about who has more money, you are talking about lives and even though it is
very difficult because we know everyone will give anything to save the life of the person you
love it is not ethical to use money in order to be benefitted When you talk about lives, both
have the same importance. For this reason it is very important to make other people and
cultures to be aware of the need of the altruist action that can be done through donating an
organ. If more people are persuaded about organs donation it will benefit more people of
their community mainly because as it is known when an organ is transplanted, the less the time
of the organ harvest the best the response of the recipient or the person who is receiving the
organ.

There are cultures that do not accept the organs donation because it goes against their
religious views. An example of this is the gypsies’ culture. It is understandable that we are not
going to change their cultures but I think in this aspect several organizations working on this
field (the organ donation field) should try to persuade these cultures in order to change their
mind about this issue. It is not about telling them that their culture is bad, it is about telling
them that a life person is the most important thing in the world and presenting them valid and
strong arguments that hopefully will slowly open their minds.

We all know losing a friend or someone from our family is the worst thing we can ever
experience. And the most difficult is that maybe you say Ok I am in favor of organs donation
but when someone you knew has died it is very difficult to offer his body in order to donate his
organs. When this happens I would like to invite you to try to be strong and think that the
person you loved will not need their organs anymore and as the way you are suffering also
there will be other people that could suffer the same but the difference is that you can do
something.