Canada ping!
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Posted on 06/28/2006 5:52:02 AM PDT by wagglebee
OTTAWA, June 27, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In a press conference at the Ottawa Hospital today, doctors announced the first-ever non-heart beating organ donation (NHBD) procedure preformed in Canada.
The procedure, also known as donation after cardiac death (DCD), typically involves a person who requires a ventilator and, although he has measurable brain function, is determined to have no hope of recovery. The doctors then remove ventilation from the patient and wait for the heart to stop beating. If the heart stops for five minutes, death is pronounced and the organs are harvested by another surgical team.
One of the major ethical problems with the procedure is that there are cases where the heart has recommenced beating and circulation after five minutes of stoppage; another is that the stoppage of the heart is caused by the removal of the ventilator.
Organ donation by "brain death" remains controversial after 30 years of the procedure being practiced, but DCD is even more controversial since there is very little time left for ethical considerations. While with "brain death" organs can be harvested at leisure since machines keep air flowing into the lungs and blood circulating, with DCD the stoppage of the heart necessitates very quick harvesting as organs deteriorate without blood flow.
The presentation of Canada's first DCD sounded more like an emotion-laden sales pitch than a medical press conference. The Therien family was on hand to lend support to the organ donation method as their 32-year-old daughter, Sarah Beth, was the first-ever donor in Canada. Sarah's father noted that the family was Roman Catholic and needed to be assured that the procedure was not in violation of the faith. Mr. Therien said that he was assured by hospital staff, "Dr. Kim and his team", that it was not in violation of the Catholic faith.
Those assurances, however, ring hollow. The Catholic Church has not even finally pronounced itself on organ donations by "brain death" let alone the new DCD procedure. In 2003, the Archdiocese of St. Louis condemned the NHBD protocol saying it is "cruel and dangerous and does not meet standards of respect for human life." It called for an immediate moratorium on the practice "until such time as clearer, objective moral standards of determination of death are enacted."
LifeSiteNews.com spoke with Dr. Moira McQueen, President of the Canadian Catholic Bioethics Centre about the matter.
Dr. McQueen told LifeSiteNews.com that waiting only five minutes after cessation of cardiovascular circulation was "frankly . . . not nearly enough." She noted there have been cases of auto-resuscitation after more than five minutes without a heart beat. Even though organs may be harmed by waiting for a sure determination of death, the principal concern is an accurate determination of death, since otherwise the patient is being killed by organ extraction. "The important thing for us is that the person donating has to be dead," explained Dr. McQueen. "The organs are a secondary consideration, that being established first."
Dr. Cameron B. Guest, Chief Medical Officer for Trillium Gift of Life Network, the agency that handles organ donation in conjunction with the hospitals, spoke with LifeSiteNews.com about the controversy over timing. Speaking of auto-resuscitation, he said, "All of the cases that were reported happened in less than a minute."
Dr. Guest, also the Chair of the Organ and Tissue Donation Committee at Sunnybrook and Women's College Health Sciences Centre in Toronto, informed LifeSiteNews.com that Catholic hospitals in Ontario were looking to take on the CDC method.
Dr. Guest conceded however, that "If there were evidence to show that large volumes of patients" were resuscitating after five minutes his team would look into altering their protocols. That concession is not good enough for Catholic hospitals says Dr. John Shea, the medical advisor to Campaign Life Coalition. Where there is a doubt about ending life, Dr. Shea told LifeSiteNews.com, we cannot ethically proceed.
The pro-life movement is opposing CDC for those same reasons.
"The laudable purpose of saving lives does not justify the donation of an organ whose removal could cause the death of a donor," said Jim Hughes, National President of Campaign Life Coalition (CLC). "Harvesting organs just five minutes after the heart stops is just plain frightening. There are cases of people whose hearts have re-started after a longer period of time," he said.
"These situations put the physician in the difficult decision-making position between the care of their patient and balancing that care against the possibility of passing on the patient's organs to someone else," said Mary Ellen Douglas, National Organizer CLC. "The code of the physician is to do no harm and a heart-wrenching decision between two patients places the physician in the role of playing God."
See a short paper by Dr. Shea on NHBD
http://www.lifeissues.net/writers/she/she_21nonheartbeating....
What you describe is frighteningly similar to what is going on in China. They execute far more people than the rest of the world combined and their preferred method of execution is a bullet in the base of the skull. This is all done so they can harvest organs as efficiently as possible. And things like tax evasion are capital offenses.
Where 'Left' leads. . .evil follows.
I suspsect this new ruling will motivate some to 'emmigrate' to next door. . .
That said: 'what time did we start counting? or. . .Oh well, what the hell. . .it's been almost five minutes. . .OR One. . .two. . ./Mary have her baby yet?/. . .four. ..five. . .
And of course. . .too numerous to consider all the 'variations' of the time is relative theme. . .
. . .and certainly a disaster for those who might have otherwise 'awakened' on the table. . .or worse, a slab. . .
They will not do it 'live'; perhaps like the Chinese do it. . .a gun; at the base of the skull; and with a silencer. THEN. . .they harvest. . .
It's not uncommon after a severe head injury such as in a vehicle crash. Some of these patients, if kept on a ventilator and other support, may not meet the technical definition of brain death for a long time, and quite possibly not until organs have deteriorated to the point where they're unuseable for transplant. But their brain injuries may be so severe that there's no realistic chance of ever regaining awareness. If they also have physical injuries that would kill them soon anyway, and likely require them to be kept in a medically induced coma or heavily sedated in the meantime, what's the point? Most people would WANT to save other lives, if there was nothing else they could possibly accomplish in their short remaining life. Of course, people should be able to opt of being donors at all, but if you want your organs to go to others when you can no longer use them, the law shouldn't prevent that by imposing requirements that will often prevent the dying person from donating organs that will save others.
. . .the core of book 'Coma' by (Dr.)Robin Cook. . .years ago; but probably still out there in paperback. . .
. . .and when I decided to never be an 'organ donor' as well. . .
(I will however give 'bone marror' or a part of an organ; iow. . .whatever I can share. . .
LOL and for sure. Do love the way the language of consciousness; speaks for itself. . .
Sometimes on Sundays, my 78 year-old grandmother would announce that we were having chicken for supper and dispatch one of us children to the coop to fetch the slowest hen or scrawniest rooster; while we were running all about to snatch it up she would busy herself with tightening up the clothesline and when we handed up our prize, she would snatch it from our hands and tie its feet to the line.
Then after checking the big kettle put on to boil and judging it ripe, she would take this great knife kept solely for this sacred rite, grasp the hapless bird about the nape, pull down taut, swipe a mighty swipe and dash across the rocky yard leaving a wavy trail of red-stained ground behind as the chicken danced its final dance.
The rest's a blur of smell and noise, the dog madly barking, me busy retching, my sister running for higher ground; but in the time for the pot to settle, the bird was gutted, the feathers plucked and the coop went back to its former raucous state.
Thanks for the reminder regarding Rabbi Zolli, I'd forgotten.
I just get sick when I see the same old lie trotted out again and again. Don't they know the case is incontrovertible? Or do they know they lie but do so anyway?
I pity poor haters like Alama. As Christians we're called to pray for our enemies. After I cool down, I always try.
I forgot to ping you to this earlier today.
Well, you don't have to worry about seeing Alama anymore.
Canada ping!
Please send me a FReepmail to get on or off this Canada ping list.
Truth, so beautifully put, is brilliant to behold. Thanks for another excellent post.
I can't set eyes on "SS St. Louis" without wanting to weep. Men should weep at the thought of it.
Interesting you mentioned 'hospital case worker'. With 30+ years in level 1 urban trauma centers I have no idea what you mean in reference to this phrase. Major level 1 hospitals have transplant teams. They include everybody from clergy to the chopper pilots who deliver the 'parts'. Consider that when death is imminent (ie..when you have grey matter leaking out of what used to be your forehead), the organs will be more viable the earlier you can retreive them. Iterfacing with a family who's son/daughter will live due to organ transplant is uplifting to say the least.
She was a person who was talking to the family in the ICU waiting room. There was an accident and the man was in a coma. She was trying to tell them that there was no chance of recovery but if they pulled the plug the organs could be harvested for transplants.
I did not get her business card and at the time, she was just plain ghoulish to be doing this. I think is we had not asked her to leave the friends wife would have physcially lashed out at her.
You points are dwarfed by what that was happening in that waiting room. It is nice they feel good harvesting organs, that changes noting for the family who must bury the remains of the loved one and find no comfort that organs were conveniently harvested.
The problem with easing the criteria for "harvesting" organs, is that each step potentially provides an avenue for undue pressure to be brought on the doctors to certify that the donor's case is hopeless, so that harvesting can be done
Pray you are not in the hospital when some VIP needs your organs
The battle to save two-year-old Joe Towey was the longest resuscitation yet carried out in the UK, he said.
He had been discovered by his parents, Michael Towey and Jennifer Nock, in the water at his Birmingham home on Boxing Day and rushed to the city's Heartlands Hospital.
Eight doctors and nurses led by Dr Nick Makwana worked non-stop to revive Joe, who has since made a full recovery from his life-threatening ordeal.
Dr Makwana said: "When he pulled through it made you think: 'Gosh, this job is so worthwhile.'"
The medic said Joe survived because the cold water, coupled with the chilly winter weather and his small size, caused his temperature to plummet suddenly, sending him effectively into a deep freeze which prevented brain injury.
Using cardiac massage equipment, the medical team worked for more than five hours to make Joe's heart beat again and another two stabilising him.
"Even when we managed to find his heartbeat, it was still a very critical situation," Dr Makwana said.
"He had been without a heartbeat for five hours, so we had to be very guarded. We were very conscious that he could be brain damaged.
"But once we knew he was going to be OK there was a real sense of achievement."
He added: "We subsequently found out that it was the longest successful resuscitation ever carried out in the UK."
Joe was today back at his home in Yardley Wood celebrating the arrival of his new brother, four-day-old Jack.
Mr Towey, a builder, said: "Joe was dead, he was completely gone.
"But the staff at Heartlands were amazing - they never gave up.
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