The Guardian reported recently that the National Health Service
(NHS) in the UK is considering its biggest shakeup of the ethical, legal and
professional rules governing transplants, floating ideas to prolong the lives
of people who have no chance of surviving in order to harvest their organs, and
to make people opt out rather than in to the donor register.
The options are included in a survey of medical, scientific
and public opinion to be launched this week to test the boundaries of what
might be acceptable, as a precursor to significant reforms.
The survey, on the NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) website
from Saturday with a deadline of 21 September, will also suggest:
• Giving priority for transplants to the 19.1 million
registered donors in the UK.
• Deploying new technologies to preserve organs beyond the
current method of packing them on ice.
• New financial rewards for intensive care units for every
organ they provide. Hospitals currently receive about £2,000 per organ to cover
their costs, which the NHSBT compares with the €7,000 (£5,500) paid in Croatia.
• Presuming consent unless people have actively opted out.
The NHSBT stressed that neither it nor the four health
departments in the UK endorsed such ideas at present, but the results would inform
future strategy on increasing transplants and organ donations.
The survey asks whether there should be a review of
present professional practices of withdrawing treatment early so that patients
stay alive longer. Most contentiously, it floats a rethink of elective
ventilation of gravely ill patients whose deaths are inevitable, such as those
who have suffered a catastrophic head or brain injury or stroke, in order to
get more donated organs after brainstem death. The law on this issue has not
been tested in UK courts.
Organ harvesting has become a very controversial topic with
reports that organs can be - and are being - harvested from the bodies of
patients who cannot be convincingly termed 'dead'.
LifeSitenews.com reported earlier this year on a booklet on
the issue published by Dr. Paul Byrne who has been warning all who are prepared
to listen about the alarming facts and dangers of the organ transplant
industry. The booklet was released
by Dr. Byrne at an International Conference for Life in Rome last February
According to the LifeSitenews.com report Dr. Byrne and other distinguished
speakers, including Cardinal Raymond Burke, addressed serious concerns
regarding so-called “brain death”, the apnea test and organ transplantation.
Dr. Bryne also introduced the new 29-page booklet produced by his Life Guardian
Foundation containing crucial information to assist the public in making
informed decisions about organ donation.
The new Life Guardian booklet is divided into six main
sections:
Facts About Being an Organ Donor - What you don’t know can kill you
Do
Your Organs Belong to the Government?
Are You Thinking About Organ Transplantation? Making an Informed
Decision
Manipulation of Beginning and End of Human Life
Catholic Teaching on Death and Organ Transplantation
The last part of the booklet contains tear-out forms, with
instructions, intended to protect its readers from premature declarations of
death that can result in imposed death, followed by subsequent unethical
removal of their organs.
Dr. Byrne believes such forms are necessary due to
increasingly hurried and flawed death declarations and the very aggressive
tactics of the organ transplant industry.
The first form, a basic, Power of Attorney for Health Care,
is followed by three complimentary, additional forms:
Directions to Protect and Preserve Life for Power of Attorney for Health
Care
Directions to Protect and Protect and Preserve Life and Health Care
Representative Serving as an Agent for Dependent Person who is a Minor
or
Mentally incapacitated person
Directions to Protect and Preserve Life to be carried at all times in
case of sudden
accident or serious illness
Each of he last three forms includes the strict, bolded
direction, “Do not hasten death. Do not shorten death. Do not do an apnea test.
Do not take any organ for transplantation or any other purpose.”
The reference to the apnea test reflects grave concerns by
Dr. Bryne and other medical professionals that this deadly procedure frequently
hastens the death of those being “tested,” some of whom might yet recover,
since they are deprived of ventilation for the dangerously long period of time
set to determine if they can breathe on their own.
Byrne writes, “Knowing full well how critical the ventilator
is, to withdraw it when it is needed most is absurd! Yet, it is planned for the
patient to be taken off for up to 10 minutes - the patient can only get worse!
This test is sometimes lethal. Make sure to instruct all medical staff: “Do not
do an Apnea test!” (Not to be confused with sleep apnoea teste)
The complete LifesiteNews,com article which includes a video of Dr. Byrne can be accessed on the following link Critical Organ Donation Warnings
