Be An Organ Donor

Grey

Grey

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Some of you may have heard about the death of Frank Deasy last week in the course of a liver transplant operation. Just a few days before, an article written by him appeared in The Observer about the plight of people on the waiting list for such operations. A subsequent interview on RTE radio sparked a big reaction in Ireland and there has been extensive coverage in the UK media.

Most people, when asked, are willing to donate their organs but this assent cannot be assumed. Unfortunately most of us don't get around to making this assent explicit and there is a shortage of donors. One way to indicate consent is to carry an organ donor card. You can also make it clear to your next of kin that you would wish them to consent to a request for the use of your organs.

UK residents can also join the NHS organ donation register on-line: http://www.uktransplant.org.uk/ukt/how_to_become_a_donor/how_to_become_a_donor.jsp

Irish residents can find out more here:
http://www.citizensinformation.ie/categories/health/blood-and-organ-donation/body_and_organ_donation

I have been prompted to start this thread because Frank was a friend years ago in Dublin and I also know his brother Declan well.
 
I wish it was worked the other way around. If you feel so strongly to keep your organs after your death (which you have every right to), then you should carry a card saying you do NOT want them used rather than the current situation were many people are too lazy, don't bother or think of carrying a donor card when they actually want to donate them.
 
I totally agree with this....it is important and vital

is there one organ that i can donate to be used in particular?

sorry!

no..it almost should be that everyone should have to opt out of carrying card rather than opt in

Oh gal just said that

must have been hard to take grey...i read story.. almost needless i feel
 
I've held a donor card and been on the organ register for over 15 years now, even though my Dad went mad when I initially told him I'd done so as a teenager. So far as I'm concerned they can have it all, I won't need it after I'm gone and if I can help people to live then they are welcome to my organs.
 
Me too - if anytihng is reusable, they can help themselves!

One other point to make here is that blood is in desparately short supply, so if you are able to be a blood donor, then get yourselves down to your nearest centre and start giving! You can donate twice, sometimes three times a year and it's a breeze - doesn't hurt and if it's during working hours, your employers shouldn't make it a problem for you to attend. Plus it's nivce to get a hot or cold drink made for you plus biscuits!!
 
I don't give blood as they won't take mine - I had a blood transfusion in 1993 so they won't take it. It's something to do with CJD I think, anyone who had a blood transfusion before a certain year they won't take blood from anymore.
 
That rules me out then! 2 pints this summer to boost my non-existent haemogloblin levels - and very much appreciated! I'm on donor register as well and have been for years.
 
Shadow Leader said:
I've just looked it up, if you've received a blood transfusion since 1980 they won't let you give blood.
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That rules me out too. The same restriction exists in Ireland, where they also bar anyone who has spent more than a year (cumulatively) in the UK between 1980 and 1996. Lots of other restrictions, also.
 
I carry a donor card and my Will states that any bits of me are to be harvested, body can be given a bit of a pull-about by the med students, then into the oven, Gas Mark 10, bit of chervil and a rub of rosemary... yummeee! I got 'em free when I was born, someone can have them if they're still useable.

Blood donating is a sore point (snigger) with me. I've donated for decades, since the 60s, and am totally peed-off to find I can't donate any more due to a stupid post-nasal drip which antibiotics just don't seem to clear up. It goes... it comes back. If I state I've had the a/b's, they want to know why, and say I can't because I've got 'an infection'. The strictures about donating are pretty tight: they won't want you if you've paid to have sex with a woman (or man), if you've been using needles for drugs at ANY time in your life (possibility of HIV), if you've travelled to certain countries in the last year, anyone in your family had CJD, and so on. Your initial blood sample is checked for just about everything before you can fully donate: syphilis, anaemia, HIV, CJD, parasites, etc. You really ARE very healthy if you become a donor! - and if, like me, you're O Negative, they'll love the stuff, since it can be transfused into anybody.
 
Been on the organ register since my teens like Shadow, don't see any reason not to in all honesty as long as the organs are useable. Like Krizon I've got the special blood but haven't been for a while so really should pull my finger out and get on with it
 
Me too - for the same reasons.I wont need them when Ive gone - and I like the idea of helping someone else. Same goes for anything I can manage with less of while Im around too - Id happily give bits of me away (as long as I will be ok wiht whats left !!)
Can you be a doner AND go for medical research Kri?? i only ask,cos if they do a PM they cant accept a body - so I just assumed it was the same for harvesting as well? ( I only know cos Dad was adament he was going to Southampton to be used - and never contemplated anythng else happening - so when they had to post mortem him (cos he was dead before the doctor saw him at the hospital) and he couldnt go - we had one heck of a problem with what to do - whenever wed tried to discuss it over the last few years we got told in no uncertain terms that he was going to Southampton and all wed have to do was phone them and they would sort it out. (which they didnt - nor did SAAFA who we were also told to get in touch with - they were no bloody help either!!)

I dont donate blood at the moment though - Ive always meant to go but never got round to it and I should, before I go off and get lost again !!
 
I used to give blood on a regular basis, I did so up until I had to have a transfusion to up my iron levels after having my little lad. I'm also another donor card holder but I hold my hands up and say they can't have my eyes, everything else not a problem but for some weird reason I don't want to have my eyes popped out!

Just on the topic of blood donors, a lovely young girl I used to work with a few years ago went to give blood for the first time. After they had taken the small sample from her they returned and told her they could not except her and would she please contact her GP as there were abnormalities in her test. Turned out she had Leukaemia. There was a happy ending to it, because it had been diagnosed quite early she responded well to treatment and recovered well after. I always remember that and also her courage through it all, a really great girl and I'm glad to say she's still with us :) She actually said herself giving blood that day was the best thing she ever did!
 
Troods - interesting Q. Don't know about PMs and donating my corpse to the hospital. I thought that if they wanted your corpse, provided you'd died from nothing too suspicious, they could just go ahead and have a hack at it.

Soba - what an amazing story. The lass ought to tell that story to one of the women's mags - she might even get a few quid for it, while heightening awareness of being a donor, and the use of the blood donation test!
 
We thought that too Kri - and whichever way you look at things - neither choking (which is what actually happened-we were there!) or just being old (which is basically what the coronor has put on the certificate (hence all our trouble with the insurance) should stop you being usable for students (or whatever happens to you when you go!) surely?? Seems daft to me. (and extra distresing when you have no idea that it causes a problem!)
 
I'd imagine it's got more to do with not having an entire body to work on; the students have entire, intact bodies which they have to learn to dissect. Generally, during a post mortem, the body is dissected, all the organs removed, studied and weighed, the ribcage cracked, the skull opened and so on and so forth. If the body has already been dissected and all organs removed then placed back, students aren't going to be able to dissect an already dissected cadaver, one would imagine, and as such aren't going to see what an untouched cadaver looks like in the first place so aren't going to learn all they need to.
 
There is a shortage of cadavers as so few people nowadays donate their bodies to Medical Science. Everytime that a course posted as a cadaver workshop crops up, half of our department is signed up, depending on which parts they specialise in (hips, knees, hands etc).

Wasn't there talk a few years ago of changing the law so that it could be assumed that we are all donors upon our deaths, unless registered as dissenting?
 
I am on list for organ donors, when I was a kid my friends brother was killed in a car accident and I clearly remember the strength their mum gained in the weeks afterwards knowing that Matthew helped 8 other people survive. Cant give blood tho as i had a transfusion
 
Encouraging news from today's Irish Times:

GENEVIEVE CARBERY
There was a record number of organ donations last year as deceased donors increased by 60 per cent on 2010, the Irish Kidney Association said today.
The association called for an organ donor registry to be introduced to further increase levels as Organ Donor Awareness week began.

There were 93 deceased organ donors last year, which allowed 248 organ transplants to be carried out.

Last year surpassed the previous record of 91 deceased donors which was set in 1998. There were 58 deceased donors in 2010.
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I carry around a card and would like my organs donated but tell me this. Even with the card would consent still be sought from my family as I don't think they would be keen on me losing my organs?
 
Galileo said:
I wish it was worked the other way around. If you feel so strongly to keep your organs after your death (which you have every right to), then you should carry a card saying you do NOT want them used rather than the current situation were many people are too lazy, don't bother or think of carrying a donor card when they actually want to donate them.
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I don't have an organ doner card. I probably will get one. Sometime. I dislike the thought of someone slicing me to pieces when I'm dead, but logically I know my organs are likely to be of more use to someone else than they are to me at that stage. I'd much prefer if it was the default and you had to physically do something to opt out. It's not laziness. I just don't like making the decision.
 
sought from my family as I don't think they would be keen on me losing my organs?
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Well they are hardly going to stay around long once they shovel earth over your box are they? They will be left to the maggots instead
 
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