Posted on 11/23/2014 9:49:01 AM PST by Shimmer1
The organ donation process has been completed for the young woman whose family was fighting against it.
According to family members of 26-year-old Martha Perez, her organs were removed on Friday against their wishes.
Fox 4 spoke to the family before the removal and they said the third woman confirmed dead of injuries sustained in an Arlington wreck involving a suspected drunk driver was technically still alive.
more.....
The hospital doesn’t have a financial incentive for donation. They have nothing to do with the decision.
State law requires all hospitals (50 state laws) to report certain criteria to the area’s OPO (organ procurement organization).
The OPO makes the decision to donate or not after the patients doctors declare them dead.
There are triple blind protections here. The OPO is removed from the certification of death. The local doctors and hospitals are removed from the donation decision. And the receiving docs/patients don’t hear anything about a potential donor until after the decision is made and the organs are matched by the OPO, so a potential receiving doc/patient/hospital cannot influence the outcome because they don’t become part of the process until after the decision is made.
In most cases, organs are flown out of the hospital where the person died to the hospital where the next best match lives, it’s not a one-stop business.
Take this article: if the hospital had kept the dead lady on life support for the next several days, they stood to gain far more financially from several days of extremely high level care than they would by having an OPO come and prematurely end the care they are providing to someone who is dead. Following the patient’s wishes here (instead of the family) likely cost the hospital tens of thousands of dollars in extra care. The hospital, just like the family, has no say in the process.
There are safeguards that prevent the conspiracy stories presented on this website. In almost every article negative to donation that is posted here, it’s readily obvious that someone with a bias purposely misrepresents a key fact. Normally, they are grieving and looking to place blame.
That’s understandable.
It’s not a conspiracy.
Donations save lives. That’s the point.
The girl was dead.
That’s great.
I made my decision when I signed my donor card.
My point is there are people on this threat talking out their ass. They have all heard one thing or another and they believe the BS.
I also respect anyone’s personal stance on this. Why can’t they respect the 28 year old woman’s decision. I am sorry it did not meet the parents standards. But the state sets the standards for medical staff. They just don’t walk in and kill people.
It’s speading crap that’s found in this thread that will prevent others from benefitting from donation.
Sorry to hear about that, FRiend.
“Donations save lives. That’s the point.”
You cannot be Pro Life if you are unwilling to donate your organs when you are dead.
I worked as an intake coordinator for an OPO for about 8 years. When a hospital calls the OPO, as required by law, if enough criteria is met, the OPO sends someone to investigate.
That was me. I made very little money for it, and could have easily made more money working overtime on my full-time job, instead.
I worked as a coordinator because I believe in saving lives. I no longer do so only because being on call for a small part-time job on top of my full-time job became too much of a time commitment for my family.
I’m an expert at the donation process. I was part of for years. I’m proud of the lives I helped save.
Seeing it from the inside-out, am I afraid the process would take my life prematurely? That’s nonsense. I’m signed up to be a donor in the very same database as the girl in the article. They won’t need my family’s permission, either. Not that that matters, as my wife is signed up as well.
Donations save lives.
Also,my favorite cousin died while waiting for a heart/lung transplant.
Of course you don't take organs from those who are still alive unless they specifically consent.But the claim that the patient was "technically" still alive doesn't ring true with me...particularly because of my experience in critical care medicine.
Your daughter s to be commended for making a selfless,and compassionate,decision under tragic,stressful,circumstances.
There can be no doubt that she was brought up right.
I hear in NYC or some places you just pray the ambulance arrives before the organ farmers do.
I’d donate only if it could be stipulated that the organs go to someone middle-class and absolutely free of charge. Since that can’t be done, no go.
Except she was not deceased if I read the article right. And in the article it does state that because she was not dead the family still had a say.
These comments from the article suggest the family still had the legal right
“The Tarrant County medical examiner says Perez died Wednesday and doctors have declared Perez brain-dead, although the hospital declined to confirm that citing patient privacy.
?
You’d think if the hospital had declared her dead they would admit it.
and one expert ( who knows how qualified this person was) said the family still had rights.
“The Tarrant County medical examiner says Perez died Wednesday and doctors have declared Perez brain-dead, although the hospital declined to confirm that citing patient privacy.”
What a tragic situation for the family.
I know what you mean. I want to be dead before I am harvested.
Patient died on Wed, donation happened on Friday.
Hospital had almost nothing to do with this and I’m sure their PR people are advising them to not comment.
The issue is between the parents and the OPO.
You have a lay family member in the article (with a vested interest in their version of the story) saying the patient could breathe on their own. The Tarrent Co. ME, someone with no vested interest in the case and who has training, says otherwise. The ME, the hospital, and the OPO all certify the patient was dead. One grieving family member, opposed to this process, says otherwise.
There isn’t a massive conspiracy here involving medical professionals from three different organizations falsifying information to steal organs. That’s absurd.
This is a story about a grieving family member seeing what the desperately hoped to see, despite all objective measures to the contrary.
Just changing status to non may not be enough anymore, because the value of human organs is great enough for them to “bend the rules” to the point of breaking.
If you are determined to not be organ harvested, there are a list of diseases that are both hard to detect, and prohibited from transplantation organs. Carrying identification that you have or have had one of these diseases would at least deny them your organs; even if they still wanted to kill you, that is, “euthanize” you for whatever reason they, not you, had.
Never underestimate the ruthlessness of such people.
How many drivers licenses are issued when one is under age 18 and don’t expire until they are in the early 20s? How can the question of organ donation be addressed both before and after age 18 when issued as a minor?
They were harvesting a living human being. Does Texas laws state that?
I’m not sure, and it’s not usually relevant. If someone is listed on their DL for donation, it’s been my experience that the OPO will still defer to family.
What you have in this case is something more. The patient, at sometime in the past, signed up in the database, an act that involves more than saying yes in the DMV line.
www.donatelifetexas.org
It’s been my experience that because checking yes on a DL is so casual, it wouldn’t stand up in court, so the OPOs defer to family, even with a yes to donation on the DL.
In this case, the patient went to the donate life website, and signed an informed consent to donate.
She was dead.
She died on Wed. Donation happened on Friday.
So you are saying the hospital gives them away free of charge? According to the doctors I know socially organ donations and transplants are some of the most lucrative business hospitals do.
They have nothing to do with the decision.
So now you are saying doctors' decisions are completely above the financial considerations? That is absurd.
State law requires all hospitals (50 state laws) to report certain criteria to the area’s OPO (organ procurement organization).
Do these "50 state laws" all define the same criteria for organ donation? I highly doubt it.
The OPO makes the decision to donate or not after the patients doctors declare them dead.
And that is where the issue of whether the patient is really dead comes into the discussion. The "organ procurement organization" certainly has an economic incentive to override the family's decision.
There are triple blind protections here. The OPO is removed from the certification of death. The local doctors and hospitals are removed from the donation decision.
This separation of responsibility hardly matters if both of these parties benefit from these types of decisions at the exclusion of the family.
And the receiving docs/patients don’t hear anything about a potential donor until after the decision is made and the organs are matched by the OPO, so a potential receiving doc/patient/hospital cannot influence the outcome because they don’t become part of the process until after the decision is made.
This is where your argument fails. Pushing organ donation benefits all these parties in general regardless of whether they benefit from a specific case.
In most cases, organs are flown out of the hospital where the person died to the hospital where the next best match lives, it’s not a one-stop business.
Again, that is irrelevant to bias I described in my post above. These groups have a economic interest is seeing people get declared legal dead so their organs can be harvested.
Take this article: if the hospital had kept the dead lady on life support for the next several days, they stood to gain far more financially from several days of extremely high level care than they would by having an OPO come and prematurely end the care they are providing to someone who is dead.
So now you are saying the patient received better care because the hospital looked forward to a lucrative organ harvest? This argument would only make sense if the hospital didn't stand to benefit finanically from overriding the family's decision.
Following the patient’s wishes here (instead of the family) likely cost the hospital tens of thousands of dollars in extra care. The hospital, just like the family, has no say in the process.
The doctors and the hospital share an undeniable financial incentive to profit from the death of organ donors.
There are safeguards that prevent the conspiracy stories presented on this website. In almost every article negative to donation that is posted here, it’s readily obvious that someone with a bias purposely misrepresents a key fact. Normally, they are grieving and looking to place blame.
No you are blaming the victims and their families. My point remains the same. If these medical entities who profit from organ donation are going to harvest organs without the permission of families, fewer people will list themselves as organ donors. Nothing you have written here refutes that.
That’s understandable. It’s not a conspiracy. Donations save lives. That’s the point.
If that is correct, then you should be arguing on here against hospitals ending care and harvesting organs against the wishes of families. The situation in this article has done immense harm to the cause of organ donation.
You have to wait there..... dr Frankenstein
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