Posted on 09/14/2007 2:03:21 PM PDT by wagglebee
After a long fight with a degenerative disease, Ruben Navarro appeared close to death. So the hospital caring for him alerted the local transplant network, which rushed a team to the medical center to try to salvage the 25-year-old's organs.
But as Navarro hung on, tension mounted in the operating room of Sierra Vista Regional Medical Center in San Luis Obispo, Calif. With time slipping away, one of the transplant surgeons ordered repeated doses of the narcotic morphine and the sedative Ativan, jokingly calling the drugs "candy," according to police reports. Navarro eventually died, but too late for his organs to be useful.
Horrified nurses complained, prompting multiple investigations. In July, prosecutors charged Hootan Roozrokh with trying to hasten Navarro's death, marking the first time a surgeon has faced criminal charges in a transplant case.
No one thinks the Navarro case is typical, but it comes as transplant advocates are becoming increasingly aggressive in their efforts to procure hearts, livers, kidneys and other organs in the hope of saving more of the thousands of desperate Americans who die languishing on waiting lists. For some doctors, nurses and medical ethicists, it represents their worst fear -- the extreme end of a spectrum of practices that have been raising alarm in hospital wards, emergency rooms and intensive care units around the country.
"This is what we've been worrying about," said Michael A. DeVita, a University of Pittsburgh critical care specialist. "If you promote organ donation too much, people lose sight that it's a dying patient there. It's not just a source of organs. It's a person."
Organ-donation agencies condemn the Navarro case and argue that they walk a careful line between advocating effectively for those who need transplants and violating ethical boundaries meticulously calibrated to protect dying patients and their families.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Is that the short story where the fine for too many speeding tickets consists of the DP so they can do some organ harvesting?
“No one thinks the Navarro case is typical...”
I doubt very much that “no one” thinks that, and just from the small sampling of responses to this on F.R. post we can see there are plenty of similar stories.
Although the Pope himself is an organ donor, I have also heard a priest very close to this situation describe it as immoral in practice, not the idea of donation, but because it almost always involves a grey area of essentially dissecting a person while he’s still alive (even though “brain dead” or whatever). The blood must apparently be flowing, and the body “kept” alive for the organs to be useful, so no one is completely dead when they start “harvesting”...that’s my limited understanding anyway.
In today's world, the surgeon may profit from installing your organ in someone else, the hospital may profit from the use of its facilities, and the recipient will profit from having their life extended.
YOU, without whom none of the above would have gotten squat, get squat. Infuriating, isn't it?
Not a prophet, just able to see the potential long-term ramifications of an emerging technology.
I have heard the same thing - that it is ideally from what they call a “beating heart cadaver.” If the heart is beating, most of us would say that person is still alive.
One good thing about a California drivers license is that there is a specific checkbox where you can declare “do not donate any organs whatsoever”. That’s the one I’ve always had checked and signed.
I wonder how much money the hospital and surgeons get for organs. Always follow the money! It must be a LOT.
I used to think organ donation was a good thing.
I’m now rethinking it. It is good for the recipient, bad for the donor.
I wonder how much money the hospital and surgeons get for organs. Always follow the money! It must be a LOT.
I used to think organ donation was a good thing.
I’m now rethinking it. It is good for the recipient, bad for the donor.
I was trying to think of the author and you nailed him before my feeble, one cup of coffee so far, mind could dredge him up. Larry Niven was correct, the bureaucrats are starting to move. MADD will start demanding your organs for having a blood alcohol level of .01.
If only punishment by organ removal could be applied to accepting illegal campaign donations from Chinese people.
Hitlery's organs have to be hugh since her butt is so wide.
MAYBE not typical now, but it sure will be at the rate we're going.
If it looks like this is a fast-growing major business now, just wait until Universal Healthcare.
Yep.
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