Cash for organs ?

The Nuffield Council on Bioethics, a charity made up of independent medical and ethics experts has launched a consultation to get the public's views on possible solutions to the present shortage of donor organs.

Inquiry chairwoman, Professor Dame Marilyn Strathearn said: "We could try to increase the number of donors by providing stronger incentives such as cash payments, payment of funeral costs or prority for an organ in the future. But would this be ethical ?

Around eight thousand people are waiting for organ transplants in Britain at any one time but a thousand will die each year before an organ become available for them.

Here is their website: http://www.nuffieldbioethics.org/ See the news-link there.

This already happens in America and in other countries, but do we want to go down this line I wonder ?

I would say not as when organs can be bought and sold some people are going to be selling them for all the wrong reasons.

Then there is the possible demograhic that such sales might come from, as, as in America it was found that down-and-outs, druggies and prison inmates were supplying a lot of the parts and the blood that was necessary.

If this WAS to be the case then the tissue-matching and disease-control would need to be very good.

The last time that we bought blood from the Americans a lot of British folk were infected with HIV and Hepatitis C.

"They" tell us that the screening is much better these days.

Must agree with that Papa !

As soon as cash might come into the mix many things could start to go wrong including the selling off of one's extra kidney to get out of bad debts.

I can see the advantage of this if the funeral costs were paid for by this fund but actually paying people for parts or for blood is just wromg any way that you look at it.

Don't you agree ?

Spare kidneys are already illegally taken from poor folk in the third world so that rich people in the West can buy them.

This is just another one of the ways that the rich can exploit the poor and I don't want to see it happening legally here.

Do any of you ?

To take an analogy from Terry Pratchett, 'Igors R Us!'

Cheers, HG

By that analogy I take it that you are against transplant technology HG ?

I look at it this way....

If it CAN be done in science or medicine it WILL be done eventually.

Of course there will always be medical and scientific ethics to temper the stuff that we discover but many great discoveries were made in the past by people breaking the ethical rules.

I think that human science cannot evolve unless a few people break a few rules.

Of course I am NOT talking about Mengele-type experiments or eugenics as if that is given a free hand we WILL become "Igors" !

Many of the arguments against certain medical procedures are generated by religious luddites and like with many other scientific and secular values the religions should keep their biases OUT OF scientific or medical ethics completely.

In fact, if things go as they should, I can see - not so far down the road - where the stem-cell scientists will be able to grow ANY organ to full size without having to take organs from dead or dying people and when that day comes transplants directly from humans will cease to exist as they will no longer need to be required.

A bit ahead of yourself there don't you think Paps ?

I don't think that any of us will see developments like that in our lifetimes.

Anyway, what the hell are the government going to do with all of the people that do not die that should have ? Are we going to see suicide booths on every street corner ?

The only other answer to that problem would be to stop people from having babies.

That would be quite a dilemma to overcome.

I am just speculating that this could be ONE possible future !

In this scenario I do agree that if the elderly and the sick are made able to live longer and longer by these techniques there is going to be a massive population explosion and either people are going to have to sharply curtail how many children they have or euthanasia is going to become a normal and daily occurrance.

I guess we are just going to have to cross that particular bridge when we reach it.

No Paps, I'm not against Transplant Technology, I was a nurse.

It was a misguided effort to bring some humour in, probably inappropriately.

Unfortunately anything with Nuffield in it's title also has to do with BUPA, as BUPA use the Nuffield private Hospitals.

My mother had a hysterectomy under BUPA, and was sent out with a raging infection and gaping wound which took months to heal.

Just a kneejerk reaction to the Nuffield name, I'm afraid. Sorry.

Cheers, HG

I cannot fault you on that one HG as I too am against private medicine when we have a very good NHS which we all pay for.

I do not say that if people have enough money to pay their national insurance AND to pay for private treatment too that they should be denied this opportunity, I just think that there is far too much mixing of private and NHS care when NHS doctors and consultants and functions are used while moonlighting in the private sector.

In my estimation, if people want luxurious medical care and want to pay for it then let them do it so long as this does not impact on the NHS services - which it inevitably does.

As an NHS nurse I am sure that you have plenty of examples of this phenomenon.

I certainly do, and these 'semi-private' hospitals are a case in point, where NHS folk can go if they have to wait too long for NHS treatment.

They cream off the simpler and cheaper operations and procedures, leaving the NHS both paying them and struggling with the more expensive work.

I have a personal experience, just before Easter I saw a Rheumatologist who said I have Angina amongst other things, so I have been to my GP, expecting to be put on some form of treatment. Only to find that the Consultant's letter, which should have been with my GP in approximately 2 weeks, has still not been typed, and it may be another Nine Weeks before it gets there! By which time I'll have been back to the Rheumatologist for a follow-up! (Maybe I should tell him to save a stamp and put them both in the same envelope!)

Cheers, HG

That's hellish HG !

I guess that we also have a post-code lottery as far as consultants is concerned too as in some areas these responses are very good while overlaps like the one you mentioned DO happen in other areas.

I can only speak for the central Scotland NHS trusts as it seems that they are quite efficient as far as such things are concerned.

Maybe you were just unlucky there !

I STILL say that there should be a ten mile high wall built between the private and the public sectors so that the best bits of the NHS are not allowed to bleed away into the private sector.

I DO agree about the fact that many overflows in the NHS are now being sent to private sector hospitals which helps to keep their cash-flow profits high at the expense of the national insurance taken from all of us.

I also agree that many of the procedures done for the NHS in the private sector hospitals are the simple and low-risk ones and they are STILL done by moonlighting NHS consultants.

This is just WRONG no matter how you look at it.

Grrrrr...mutter mutter mutter......