Blood/organ/bone marrow donation

I would go as far as to make the harvesting of organs from a dead patient legal unless the person was carrying an opt card or who had registered as wanting to opt out on a national database.

Welcome back Sniper.

This time I wholeheartedly (as it were) back your opinion.

If a British government ever developed a spine we might see that legislated.

Hope springs eternal. Unlike failing organs in fact.

I also agree with Mr Sniper.

quote:

Originally posted by mongo

If a British government ever developed a spine we might see that legislated.

no chance, this goverment and the next are and will remain spineless with immigration,banks,organ donation and most everything else.so who do you vote for gordon the terrible or slick rick,what a choice.

Well done Naimies, the more people that do this the better. Don't forget the bone marrow register.

People that come up with pathetic excuses for not donating don't deserve to recieve.

If you are O neg make sure you donate first thing in the morning if possible because the NHS will use your blood for new born babies.

If all regular donators could get one new person to donate a year then the shortage will soon be over.

If the government removed the speed limit from motorways then the availability of organs would increase.

quote:

If you are O neg make sure you donate first thing in the morning if possible because the NHS will use your blood for new born babies.

As it happens I am but I didn't know that about the babbies.

steve

quote:

I didn't know that about the babbies

Probably because it isn't true in any generalisable sense!

O negative is used in 2 settings: (a) where a person of unknown group is losing blood at a rate that does not allow even the simplest (ABO/Rhesus) level of grouping and (b) where the recipient is actually O negative.

Even in the first instance, O negative is only used while the patient's ABO/Rhesus group is established - a matter of minutes if in a hospital - then blood of the correct group is used. Over the next while, more detailed grouping continues and finally the patient is offered units of blood specifically suited to them.

The underlying sentiment is beyond contest, though. O negative isn't needed often, but when it is, it is!

Fraser (Dr.)

only passing on what the blood donor unit told me.

well you should go back and tell them not to talk shit,assuming the doctor is correct.

I suppose they were trying to mke me feel it was important to give blood and yes it is very important.

quote:

Originally posted by Sniper:
I would go as far as to make the harvesting of organs from a dead patient legal unless the person was carrying an opt card or who had registered as wanting to opt out on a national database.

You seem to want even more of the State nannying us about. What individual decision or responsibility is too far for the State to take control of?

I profoundly disagree with this idea. I would neither accept an organ or blood. When it is time to die, I shall accpet it with good grace.

You may imagine that I do not carry a Donor-card ... and be right.

Best wishes from George

George,

Imagine the joy you would bring to a family if your bone marrow saved the life of their only child or your corneas gave someone sight or your blood saved the life of a doctor or your heart saved the life of a Naim factory worker? If I am laying on my death bed I would take considerable comfort from knowing my bits and pieces will be used to save life, not because I need to know a part of me will continue to live but for the joy of knowing that even in death I have made a worthwhile difference to the world.

Dying and squandering your organs to burn or rot is like burying a fortune in the ground where no one will ever find it rather than leaving it to charity.

quote:

Originally posted by GFFJ:

quote:

Originally posted by Sniper:
I would go as far as to make the harvesting of organs from a dead patient legal unless the person was carrying an opt card or who had registered as wanting to opt out on a national database.

You seem to want even more of the State nannying us about. What individual decision or responsibility is too far for the State to take control of?

I profoundly disagree with this idea. I would neither accept an organ or blood. When it is time to die, I shall accpet it with good grace.

You may imagine that I do not carry a Donor-card ... and be right.

Best wishes from George

George

I totally respect this view which is why the system would have an opt-out clause. The fundamental change is that those with strong feelings such as yours would be able to make a decision but that the 'silent majority' (and research shows that the majority are in favour of such a change) would opt-in by default rather than having to take the step of actively joining the register.

I've seen this at both ends in a way. I've seen young lives saved by blood transfusions and organ donation. I've seen sight restored by corneal grafts. I've sat down with families and had to ask them about allowing a loved one who lays dying to be an organ donor and I've seen how this has genuinely provided some solace in grief at a later date. I have also had the priveledge of being a bone marrow donor (to an anonymous recipient via the Anthony Nolan Trust), an act that has probably done far more good than most things in my career!

Bruce

George's one man campaign to lower the world's population. No kids and no help from his dead body.
Why don't you just invent a super toxin or something?

Don't bother to reply.

yes,it made me angry when i read his post.

I gave blood again for the first time in several years last week. I did it regularly when I worked at a place where the donation trailer was brought and parked outside for a day. The minor inconvenience of now having to drive a couple of miles was totally offset by the sense of doing something worthwhile. And who knows, one day I might be the one needing the blood back.

I am more than happy for my organs to be used once I have stopped inhabiting this rather decrepit body. I do sometimes ponder the ethics of the transplant industry however, but that my be a different topic.

But, if you donated your blood or organs, god would be QUITE IRATE and we don't want THAT to happen, do we boys and girls...

He might send an earthquake.



Apparently.

Many years ago I underwent a life saving operation to remove an abscess from my liver and had a complete oil change.

I became a blood donor once I had recovered sufficiently, so hopefully I am in credit again.

Had to stop though due to being permanently being on medication for a heart condition.

I'm not sure which bits of me would be useful to someone else: dodgy heart, damaged liver (see above), scarred lungs (pnuemonia, also see above)...

George seems more upset that someone might give him a transplant and therefore prolong his life than that they might give his organs to someone else!

George, are you really such a miserable bastard that you would deny a younger, less miserable person the chance of a longer life? If you really hate people that much why do you care if the world is overpopulated? Surely the more of us are the more we'll all suffer.

You seem to care more about watches and bicycles than you do about people. I think your grumpy old man gland is a little overactive.

I'm sure you can carry a 'please let me die at the earliest opportunity card'. Or you could always have 'shoot me now' tattooed across your face.

PS I suspect you're alright really. I'm just trying to unpick what on earth you really mean by all this.

I suddenly thought of those rabbits in "Watership Down", the ones who made the main characters leave sharpish because they felt these guys were just a bunch of depressed miseries planning to die soon...

Stu,

To hold an opinion is not bound to be an attempt to court popularity.

Dear David [Scott?],

My argument with changing the law is to do with Nanny State-ism. Why should anyone presume to take what is not decidedly and consciously offered as the present system allows?

If a person wishes to give his blood or organs then I am happy for this action to take place without interference from me, regardless of my own view of it in terms of my own actions.

Dear Mike [Dudley]

My view is based entirely on my own analysis. I don't think one way or the other is prescribed by any mainstream Christian denomination.

Dear 151,

Why be angry? I am only advocating a continuation of the status quo in legal terms. What others do within the legal framework today is their own business. I did not and will not presume to tell anyone else what to do. Opt in if you want to and are motivated. I see no reason to change the emphasis. If a person is apathetic [which I am not] then so be it.

I am out for the minimum amount of State interference in the decisions of individuals where this does not involve the individual indulging in criminal practices.

Dear Howard [BigH47],

I have no interest in controlling anyone else's actions, beyond possibly motivating them they to think it through, before in this case advocating a change in the law.

Before lecturing in such a hectoring tone and so crudely dismissing the possibility of a reply, I would consider it right to point out your fetish with obituary is considerable more eccentric.

I used to think there was humour behind your grimness, but all I see recently is sentimental half-baked cod philosophy. Perhaps you are off form, or perhaps you are slowly revealing yourself very honestly.

Dear Bruce [Woodhouse].

Thanks for understanding my point and treating it with respect. It is possible to debate and discuss with people who deal in respectful terms, even if the difference of opinion may be profound.

---------

Well I see that as ever I am in a minority. But better to be honest and straight forward, even if this leaves one in a minority, than bending too much with the wind.

George

So we're one up on you lot.
Here in NZ there your Donor Status is recorded on everyone's drivers license - and a horrible photo as well.

BTW "Donor" is recorded on my license

Dear PJT,

Is this opt-in. or opt-out?

If opt-in, then your NZ system seems uterly sane to me.

ATB from George

George,

When you realised that I was taking issue with you, you seem to have jumped to the conclusion that I was proposing what you already believe to be the opposite of your viewpoint. You certainly seem to have replied without paying attention to what I wrote.

I absolutely understand your point about the distinction between an opt in and an opt out policy. I disagree with it, and I hope, if the law is changed and you choose to opt out, that your organs are harvested anyway as a result of an administrative error and used to save the lives of many cheerful people. Because I think saving people's lives is the more important consideration. And in any case I hardly think the last bastion of freedom will have been stormed if such a law is introduced.

There. We disagree.

But my question really is this - opt in or opt out - why would you, personally, not want your organs to be used to save the lives of others?