 A “cardiac death” transplant saved Zachary
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A report on three heart transplants involving babies is focusing attention on a touchy issue in the organ donation field: When and how can someone be declared dead?
For decades, organs have typically been removed only after doctors determine that a donor’s brain has completely stopped working. In the case of the infants, all three were on life support and showed little brain function, but they didn’t meet the criteria for brain death.
With their families’ consent, the newborns were taken off ventilators and surgeons in Denver, Colorado, removed their hearts minutes after they stopped beating. The hearts were successfully transplanted, and the babies who got the hearts survived.
“It seemed like there was an unmet need in two situations,” said Dr. Mark Boucek, who led the study at Children’s Hospital in Denver. “Recipients were dying while awaiting donor organs. And we had children dying whose family wanted to donate, and we weren’t able to do it.”
The procedure — called donation after cardiac death — is being encouraged by the federal government, organ banks and others as a way to make more organs available and give more families the option to donate.
Good idea?
About 50% of the organs transplanted in America go to people who haven’t agreed to donate their own organs when they die. As long as we let non-donors jump to the front of the waiting list if they need a transplant we’ll always have an organ shortage.
There is a simple way to put a big dent in the organ shortage — give organs first to people who have agreed to donate their own organs when they die.
Giving organs first to organ donors will convince more people to register as organ donors. It will also make the organ allocation system fairer. People who aren’t willing to share the gift of life should go to the back of the waiting list as long as there is a shortage of organs.
Anyone who wants to donate their organs to others who have agreed to donate theirs can join LifeSharers. LifeSharers is a non-profit network of organ donors who agree to offer their organs first to other organ donors when they die. Membership is free at http://www.lifesharers.org or by calling 1-888-ORGAN88. There is no age limit, parents can enroll their minor children, and no one is excluded due to any pre-existing medical condition.
Drink yourself to death and you will never encounter this problem. Nobody wants a 10 pound, puffy, oversized heart that can’t pump enough blood to fill a soda straw, so you will never have greedy doctors hovering over your body when you close your eyes for the last time.