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Britain debates organ transplants

LONDON: Britain is debating the rights and wrongs of removing organs from dead people to graft them into the bodies of the desperately ill.

It took a desperate television plea from the father of critically ill six-year-old Sally for a donor to provide her with a new heart, which might or might not save her life. Sally was finally lucky enough to be given a new heart in a country where people are sometimes forced to wait years for a transplant operation because of a shortage of organs.

The case revived debate on the morality of removing organs from a person who has just died, on the presumption that he was given his consent, in order to increase the size of the organ bank.

At present the law in Britain allows removal of organs from a dead person only if he has signed a donor card. Although 70 percent of Britons say they would be ready to have their organs removed after their death, only 20 percent hold a donor card.

If the law allowed doctors to remove organs without specific consent Ñ as is permitted in 13 European countries including Spain, Belgium and France Ñ it would increase the life-saving supply by between 10 and 50 percent, according to studies.

Under this system, all those who refused to give organs after their death would be placed on a list. If they are not on the list, they would be presumed to have given their consent.

The British Medical Association (BMA) favours this system, citing the 1,000 patients who have died since 1995 for lack of a transplant and the 5,396 people now on the waiting lists.

Labour Party parliamentarian Nick Palmer argues that between the donor card holders and the recalcitrant who refuse to give any part of themselves to save the sick, there is a silent majority that amounts to 50 percent of Britons who would be happy to save a life after their death. "At present all their organs are going to waste, while people are dying and living in misery because of the lack of organs," Palmer said.

But a change in the law is far from imminent. Secretary of State for Health Philip Hont commented: "the best approach is first to reorganise our transplant services, as we are doing, and to put more effort into encouraging people to go on the donor register".

The health ministry for its part said it believed that fewer than a quarter of the population wanted to change the present system.

British newspapers apparently support the status quo. The mass-circulation tabloid the Sun has begun a campaign in favour of the present system, while offering a donor card to its readers.

Nurses meanwhile voted three to one to keep the system at their annual conference in Bournemouth, southern England, last week. "Whilst the opt-out system may provide more organs, it may be at an additional cost to the families left behind which could transgress their beliefs and damage their bereavement process," said London nurse Claire Pictom.ÑAFP