CPR and organ donation

I usually find most ‘slippery-slope’ arguments disingenuous attempts to obstinately get in the way of someone elses solid ground.

But two decades of organ shortages has led many to propose situations where vulnerable individuals could find themselves more valuable to the health care industry when dead rather than alive. This is because the mostly dead cost a lot and reimburse little, while the transplant patient reaps great financial rewards for hospitals and doctors.

The decisions made in the field and in ERs will be tainted by considerations other than the patient’s individual needs. The opportunities for review, reconsideration, or family consent will be bypassed. The evidence will ultimately be burried.

My hospital has begun harvesting organs from still living patients under the guise of the new ‘non-heart beating donor’ program. What is not publicly discussed is how the patient’s get to be ‘non-heart beating’. They are taken to the OR where the organ harvesting surgeon preps the skin. The intensivist (because all the anesthesiologists have refused) withdrawals life support, removes the breathing tube and gives large doses of narcotics to ensure no breathing. The narcotic are ostensibly given to reduce suffering, but this is a disingenuous argument because if there were patient suffering they why were these narcotics not used in the hours or days prior to this event to reduce the same suffering. The transplant surgeon cannulates the femoral artery and vein with large catheters as are used in a heart-lung machine.

The breathing stops, the heart stops, the patient is declared dead.

Then it gets really creepy. The newly dead patient has the heart-lung bypass machine turned on to keep the vital organs well. The heart is cardioverted back to normal rhythm because this is necessary for a healthy donor heart. Breathing for the lungs is resumed artificially.

Everything about the patient is mostly the same as when it all started, except now there is a death certificate on the medical record. The brain has probably taken some hypoxic damage from the cardiac arrest, but there is no reason to believe that the brain is dead, much less unconscious. Then the organ harvest begins.

If there was any doubt about the patient’s death prior to the harvest, then all doubt is erased as the heart, lungs, liver, and kidneys are removed.

This is not some radically out there project of some whacko minds. This was instituted at St. Louis Children’s Hospital only after significant consideration of similar programs at many other Children’s hospitals throughout the country.

My Heart Transplant

My blog will take you through my personal experience of having a heart transplant. It will show the importance of organ donation. It will give guidance in case you or a loved one have to go through the transplant experience.

If the averages held, on the day I received my new heart 18 other people died somewhere in the U.S. because there wasn’t a heart, kidney, liver or other organ available to save them. That makes me a very lucky guy.

I now have a chance to see my first two grandchildren this year. Both my daughter and my daughter-in-law are pregnant. Even more importantly my father, who has inoperable pancreatic cancer, has a chance to see his first two great granchildren before he dies.

What do you do when you have been blessed with a second chance in life? That’s an individual decision for everyone. I decided to organize CODA. The aim is to provide financial help to the less fortunate for the cost of prescription drugs and medical costs. It also awards scholarships to young organ recipients to help them with school costs. It is a 501 (c)(3) charity so financial contributions are deductible according to state and federal law.

Organ recipients have to take anti-rejection drugs for the rest of their life. If they don’t, they will die. Many people cannot afford the costs involved in a transplant. Through CODA I’m trying to help. You can visit our website at http://www.codacharity.org.

Don’t be intimidated by the “Make a Donation” button. It’s not asking for you to donate an organ. It merely takes you to “Paypal” if you’d like to make a secure tax-deductible charitable contribution via the Internet. Thanks and I hope you enjoy reading about my personal experience.

Any day is a great day for a patient to receive a transplant, but to receive my heart on Valentine’s Day, 2004 is very special to me and my family.