IN OUR Outlook magazine last Sunday we carried the desperate human stories of persons waiting for organ transplants. Medical science has brought the possibility of a new lease on life within reach of people suffering from the failure of a number of organs. The difficulty is to obtain an adequate supply of those organs.
There are as many as 400 patients awaiting kidney transplants alone in the country. The alternative is regular dialysis on scarce dialysis machines, twice per week, four hours at a time, or death.
In several countries there is an organised system for the donation of organs which people really do not need after they themselves are dead. In Jamaica there is pretty strong resistance to organ donation, much of it rooted in religious sentiment. None of the denominations specifically forbids donation. What seems to be at work are strong personal beliefs about the integrity of the body which precludes removing any of its parts even after death.
There is, of course, the more technical and complex ethical concern about when death occurs. In this age of life-support systems, the medical profession is defining death as the cessation of brain activity.
The strong tradition of caring and supporting life is a useful base from which to launch an assertive but sensitive campaign to encourage organ donation. The Rotary Club is already seeking to set up a programme through which people can indicate on the back of their driver's licence that they wish to be an organ donor. Such a programme is only likely to work if led by a public education drive both to inform of the need for organs and to lower psychological barriers to giving life to someone else by donating organs no longer needed at the end of life.
The opinions on this page, except for the above, do not necessarily reflect the views of The Gleaner.
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