US doctor on organ harvest charge

[NashVegas]

Source: BBC

A transplant surgeon in the US has been charged with attempting to hasten the death of a disabled man in order to harvest his organs.

...

He is accused of ordering large amounts of narcotic painkillers and sedatives for a Ruben Navarro, 25, before he was officially declared dead.

...

Dr Roozrokh is also charged with administering the antiseptic Betadine through a feeding tube into the patient's stomach. That procedure typically takes place once a donor has died.

Prosecutors claim this occurred just after Mr Navarro, who was physically and mentally disabled, was taken off life support. He survived for another seven hours.

Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6925289.stm

---

This is why some people say they'll sign their donor card when transplant doctors and hospitals donate their services, as well.

[Quakerfriend]

1. Not surprising. I think what this doc did is really just the tip of the

iceberg.

Have you read Body Brokers by Mary Cheney (no relation)? It is all about the underground business (VERY lucrative business) in body parts. Anyone who thinks they are going to be cremated when they go MUST read this book, first.

[Robson]

34. This is the ultra-guilded age

When there is big money to be made, the greedy and the corrupt will find a way.....even if it involves what most would consider a business as vile as grave robbing. I do believe that the ultra-gilded age will include killing for body parts as well as robbing bodies to fill the demand from the gilded.

The USA and the world have far too many of these entrepreneur w/o ethics types. Too bad the AEI and other pro greed organizations will likely cannonize them as an example of the American capitalist way.

On the downside my wife and I are thinking about deleting our organ donor status to NON-organ donor. This will hurt average Americans while the ultra-gilded have millions to bid and buy any body parts.

[DemBones DemBones]

48. I do, too. And it's very disturbing to think

that whether you choose cremation or burial, your body may be taken apart for spare parts.

Probably most of us have seen something on television about discoveries that bones had been removed from bodies and replaced with PVC pipe, without the knowledge, much less the consent, of the family.

I wouldn't be surprised if some in the medical profession start promoting "bone donation" next.

[blondie58]

2. this is tantamount to murder

and sounds exactly like what is allegedly happening in China right now to their political prisoners.

WHO benefits from the sale of the organs? I wonder if this doctor personally received any money for this unethical act.

[mopinko]

11. this is the same as ordering a person to be executed,

for political dissent, when someone who is their tissue match pays you? with a leap like that, you should think about the olympics.

me, personally, GO AHEAD. i am a rotting hunk of meat. my death warrant is signed, knock me out, get it over, i have no desire to breathe for 6 more hours while someone else is suffering. especially since that person might not last the 6 hours.

[AndyTiedye]

44. What if the Recipient Were Dick Cheney?

me, personally, GO AHEAD. i am a rotting hunk of meat. my death warrant is signed, knock me out, get it over, i have no desire to breathe for 6 more hours while someone else is suffering. especially since that person might not last the 6 hours.

[orleans]

46. so..where is the christian right outrage?...n/t

[DemBones DemBones]

49. This Christian leftist is outraged. I'm sure the Christian right will be,

too, if they find out about it. People can only be outraged about things they know about and the media only covers some of the news.

[sarcasmo]

3. The #1 reason I am no longer an organ donor.

These sick fuc$$ are only in medicine for one reason, to make money.

[knitter4democracy]

6. He's not doing it for the money.

He probably is paid a salary by the hospital regardless of whether he saves every patient or not. He was jumping the gun to save a dying patient (I'm pretty sure that'll be his argument). Wouldn't you want a surgeon doing everything he could for a loved one in kidney or liver failure?

[acmavm]

7. You KNOW this guy isn't getting money under the table to

provide an organ for someone? You KNOW he's doing it out of the goodness of his heart?

How do you KNOW this?

[knitter4democracy]

23. My husband's a doctor, I know many doctors, and I have never heard of this happening.

Hubby went to a top-tier med school and saw many things, but he never saw bribes.

Look, it takes an amazing amount of training to be a transplant surgeon. Those guys are on the top of the heap, surgery-wise, except for maybe some super specialized brain surgeons or vascular surgeons. He wouldn't risk his reputation (that which gets him and hospital patients to operate on with insurance to pay the bills) unless he felt pressure to do so. That pressure, from what I've seen and heard, is usually from the recipient's family/loved ones or the recipient.

A surgeon taking bribes makes for a great story, but most doctors I know are wimps when it comes to seriously jeopardizing their medical license and malpractice insurance. This guy will lose both and never be able to practice again, most likely.

[trashcanistanista]

30. Well he just did.

I hope is jailed for murder. This is horrific.

[NorthernSpy]

14. the only organs you're entitled to are YOUR OWN...

He was jumping the gun to save a dying patient (I'm pretty sure that'll be his argument). Wouldn't you want a surgeon doing everything he could for a loved one in kidney or liver failure?

Look: you have no right to kill me for my organs, no matter how much you value your loved-ones life over mine. I don't belong to you.

[PoconoPragmatist]

20. Damn Skippy!!

And I'm taking all my parts with me, too.

I'm not giving anyone a reason to see me as more valuable dead than alive!

[knitter4democracy]

24. Absolutely! Which is why there are the safeguards in place and why he was caught.

He was caught because he so flagrantly broke the rules. I'm sure the AMA will be up in arms and have all sorts of articles in AMNews and JAMA for the next couple of weeks about it. My husband was sickened and furious, and he's an internist who often deals with some of the sickest patients.

The surgeon was wrong, wrong, wrong. He's going to argue that he was pressured to do this by a dying patient with no time to wait 8 hours for the donor to die, but it's a crap argument.

[trogdor]

8. Same here.

As long as medicine is subject to the horrors of unchecked capitalism, I refuse to sign on to this. No way.

[Blue_Tires]

31. +1

[progressoid]

13. Are you kidding?

:eyes:

[OhioChick]

4. This is Disturbing

on so many levels.

[knitter4democracy]

5. Massively wrong, and he will pay for it.

Even if he beats the criminal charges (unlikely), he'll lose his license and never be able to practice again, now that the national system for checking licenses is getting better.

He should've known better. Yes, he had a dying patient he was trying to save; yes, he had pressure from patients' families to find a donor and fast since their loved one was suffering and could die any time; yes, he was furious that a patient who probably should've been a no-code was being held onto by family and loved ones when he had dying patients who could be saved---but all of that is meaningless until the donor is really dead. Meaningless.

I doubt he was doing it for the money. Transplant surgeons don't do it for the money (there are more profitable areas of surgery), but they do get pissed when they have a dying patient waiting for an organ that will save his life and they lose the donor, too. The timing is important for donor organs--wait too long, and they're worthless. So, they have to jump on things quickly for kidneys, lungs, or the heart (the biggest need areas).

[yardwork]

9. I agree with you. What a mess, though.

This is one of those cases where the "slippery slope" is a valid concern.

[PoconoPragmatist]

21. I Doubt It

I doubt he will pay for it. Seems these days, many people get away with dastardly deeds...so why not this guy?

Check his voter registration. That will be a clear indicator of whether or not he gets away with it, if you ask me.

[knitter4democracy]

22. Bad doctors don't, especially when it hits the media.

Remember, state medical boards are political but often kept fairly evenly balanced. If a governor is ticked that a doctor is getting her state bad press, let alone the hospital that allows him to operate there, heads will roll. They have here.

[PoconoPragmatist]

10. This Is Why I Will Never Be An Organ Donor

I am afraid some gung-ho doctor will kill me to get at my organs, when I might actually have been saved.

Besides...the recipient PAYS for the organ...so why does not my estate get the money for it, then? Fuck capitalistic medicine!

[DarbyUSMC]

12. Some people shouldn't be organ donors.

The recipient doesn't "pay" for the organ. Geeze Louise. A third of the people I know have gotten kidneys; most from cadavers, some from living donors. Another third of the people I know/knew are dead and then there is the last third, those on life support three times a week, like me.

Years ago I learned to not speak of that which I did not know. There aren't a lot of areas that I'm well versed in, but this would be one of the few.

Although there is no need to fear being killed for your organs, I don't think we'll ever see you taking part in the Pay it Forward program, eh?

Laurie Sarvo wanted to donate a kidney to her daughter, Angela Heckman, but the Toledo women didn't have the same blood type.

So as part of the nation's first chain of donations, engineered through the Alliance for Paired Donation Inc. in Maumee, Ms. Heckman is scheduled to get a kidney today given by the husband of a Phoenix recipient, and Ms. Sarvo will help another patient in coming weeks.

Otherwise, 32-year-old Ms. Heckman - who had received dialysis treatment for roughly 11 years when an autoimmune disorder caused her kidneys to fail - could have waited years instead of months on a transplant list.

"They showed us the paired donation , and it was like the perfect thing," Ms. Sarvo said yesterday while visiting the University of Toledo Medical Center, formerly Medical College of Ohio Hospital.

"She's going to get help, and I'm going to help someone else," the 52-year-old added.

UT kidney transplant surgeon Dr. Michael Rees, who created and directs the alliance, started working in 2000 on the newfound method for finding matches. The alliance is geared toward increasing the number of transplants and is dubbed the "never-ending altruistic donor."

Dr. Rees' father, Atlanta computer consultant Alan Rees, created the initial computer program used to match donors and recipients.

The first chain started July 18 in Phoenix, when a donor from Petoskey, Mich., donated one of his kidneys for 53-year-old Barb Bunnell, who has a hereditary kidney disease. She is recovering well.

Her husband, Ron Bunnell, was willing but unable to donate a kidney to her, so he came to Toledo on Monday to give one to Ms. Heckman tomorrow.


"I can never pay him back," Mr. Bunnell, 54, said of his wife's donor, Matt Jones. "But I can pay it forward."

Ms. Heckman met the Bunnells on June 22, her birthday.

"It was a great birthday present," Ms. Heckman said soon after receiving a three-hour dialysis treatment yesterday. "It's like 'wow.' "


Ms. Sarvo, Ms. Heckman's mother, will start another chain of kidney transplants as a "bridge" donor.

Possible matches are being tested, and that chain's first transplant surgery could take place next month, Dr. Rees said.

"I think it's going to revolutionize the way we share kidneys in America, and it will all be based on altruism," he said.

So far, 52 transplant hospitals in 17 states are involved with the chain-donation program, and 32 other facilities are considering it, Dr. Rees said.

More information about the alliance can be found at the Web site, www.PairedDonation.org.

The transplant chain requires trust, and a psychological evaluation may have to be developed as well, he said.

[NashVegas]

15. Free Organs - What a Great Way to Create Demand

And make no mistake - it is a DEMAND that has been created of what potential donors were told was a "gift."

*Someone pays.*

So then, this table is completely wrong about procurement costs?

http://www.transplantliving.org/beforethetransplant/finance/costs.aspx

[PoconoPragmatist]

18. True.

Some people's organs simply are not useful, for health reasons.

that aside...it looks like one guy got killed for his organs. I'm terrified of that being me. I want EVERY LAST SECOND OF LIFE I CAN GET!!

[DemBones DemBones]

50. Kidney donation leaves the donor alive. Big difference.

You can also donate bone marrow, blood, plasma, and part of your liver (because the liver regenerates.)

But when they take your heart or lungs, you're dead, and maybe you were murdered for your organs, like this poor man was.

[knitter4democracy]

25. The recipient is paying for the service.

The organ donation program, if I remember correctly from when Hubby was studying it in med school, is entirely free. All the bills are for the surgery and the care. It's a highly specialized and difficult field.

[NorthernSpy]

16. moral of the story: it really IS dangerous to be worth more dead than alive

:scared:

Apparently, organ donor status DOES create an incentive to pull the plug on some patients -- or worse. Those of us who have warned of this sort of thing have been laughed at, scoffed at, or even condemned for our predictions. Well, we were right.

[PoconoPragmatist]

19. Yup.

But they will keep right on laughing at us, even in spite of this new revelation.

Sorry, but I want every last second of life I can get!! We only get one life...I do not believe in any sort of afterlife, so, since I only get one shot at this, I weant it for as long as I can.

I guess that makes me a bad, selfish person...that I'm not willing to die for someone else.

[knitter4democracy]

26. It made the news because it is so rare.

My husband went to a top-tier med school that was with a very large, very busy city hospital. He did his residency at the two hospitals in town in SW Michigan, and he's now in practice here. He's never, ever heard of anything like this happening. He has seen one doctor-assisted suicide, but that patient was not an organ donor. He was asked, especially during residency, to get patients and their families to agree to organ donation, but they were to take no for an answer and mark it in the chart. Same for no-codes. He ran many codes himself on patients who should've been allowed to pass on in peace whose families wouldn't let him stop trying until hours later the loved ones finally admitted that the patient was gone.

A doctor can lose his license if he messes with the organ donation rules. I don't know any doctors who would risk their license or their malpractice insurance for a patient. That's why many doctors will undercare or overtest or run that code for hours just so they can't get sued. This guy was an anomoly.

[DarbyUSMC]

28. Exactly right. An anomoly.

[NorthernSpy]

17. Man kills beggar for his organs (China)

Here's another recent murder-for-organs incident:

Beijing - A man in northern China has been sentenced to death for killing a homeless, mentally ill beggar and selling his organs to a group of doctors, state media said on Tuesday.

After seeing Internet reports that hospitals had a shortage of organs, Wang Chaoyang abducted the beggar last November in the town of Longzhou in Hebei province, the Beijing Times reported, quoting local police.

Wang then contacted several doctors in the area, promising to sell them fresh organs from "a prisoner sentenced to death by a local court".

Wang then administered a lethal injection to kill the beggar, identified as Tong Gefei, just before the doctors were to arrive to pick up the organs.

Horrible!

However, as an unnamed doctor was removing Tong's organs, he suddenly reached out a hand, grabbing the doctor's arm before dying, the paper said.

Gaaaah! Even more horrible!



You can read the rest of this horrible story at http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=126&art_id=nw20070724085239394C475165

[hedgehog]

27. Looking into the story a little further, there is room for some doubt.

This may be a he said, she said situation. If enough narcotics were administered to kill the patient, why did he live for 76 hours after being removed from the respirator? As it happens, there were no organs harvested.

[NashVegas]

29. I Think You Misread

The BBC story says 7 hours. Were you looking at a different source?

Apparently the rule is, after the respirator is removed, the organs aren't considered viable outside of a 30 minute window.

[MiserableFailure]

32. I'm going to take my name off the registry

nt

[knitter4democracy]

33. Please don't because of one rogue doc.

Organ donation is a huge, huge gift, so please think about it, given that this kind of things is in the news because it's rare. Doctors don't take organs unless they're given permission to do so, and even family can overrule a signed permission form from the patient. There's a huge need for organs, especially kidneys, and it is a huge amazing gift of life to someone who would die otherwise. Too many people on the lists die before they can get the surgery that would save their lives, even children who have the possibility of a long life ahead of them.

One rogue surgeon isn't worth that.

[MiserableFailure]

35. Doctors don't take organs unless they're given permission to do so

It appears that isn't always the case

[knitter4democracy]

36. Again, one rogue surgeon doesn't make for it happening everywhere.

My husband's an internist who's been involved in many codes and patients dying from whatever and talking with the family about organ donation at five different hospitals now. He has never, ever heard of anyone rushing someone's death for organs, never seen anything like that himself, and is sickened by the thought of a surgeon prepping a patient for organ donation who said no and wasn't dead. I would think that the vast majority of doctors would be sickened as well--at least, all of the doctors I know would be.

[NorthernSpy]

38. even if the "rogue" doctor goes away, the incentive to pull the plug remains...

Everyone must make his own choice.

But I will go so far as to urge anyone who is uninsured (and/or not affluent enough to pass the means test for organ recipients) not to sign an organ donor card. You have nothing to gain, and possibly everything to lose.

[knitter4democracy]

37. Thoughts from doctors on similar problems with organ donation:

http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2007/04/09/prsb0409.htm

http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2006/08/14/edsa0814.htm

http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2006/08/07/prsd0807.htm

From an article in the New England Journal of Medicine (the top med journal in the US):
"Since 1968, when an ad hoc committee at Harvard Medical School proposed a brain-based definition of death that became widely accepted, organs for transplantation have been removed primarily from hospitalized patients who have been pronounced dead on the basis of neurologic criteria, when they are on ventilators and their hearts continue to function. The continued circulation of blood helps to prevent the organs from deteriorating.

Obtaining organs from donors after cardiac death — when the heart is no longer beating — is the approach that was generally followed in the 1960s and earlier. Today, such donations typically involve patients who are on a ventilator as the result of devastating and irreversible brain injuries, such as those caused by trauma or intracranial bleeding. Potential donors might also have high spinal cord injuries or end-stage musculoskeletal disease. Although such patients may be so near death that further treatment is futile, they are not dead.

The United Network for Organ Sharing, a private nonprofit group based in Richmond, Virginia, operates the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network under contract with the federal government and is committed to increasing the number of donors. OPTN/UNOS, as the networks are collectively known, has developed rules for donation after cardiac death. According to these rules, finalized in March 2007, the process begins with the selection of a suitable candidate and the consent of the legal next of kin to the withdrawal of care and retrieval of organs. Subsequently, life-sustaining measures are withdrawn under controlled circumstances in the intensive care unit (ICU) or the operating room; donation after an unexpected fatal cardiac arrest is rare.

When the potential donor meets the criteria for cardiac death, a doctor pronounces the patient dead. The time from the onset of asystole — the absence of sufficient cardiac activity to generate a pulse or blood flow (not necessarily the absence of all electrocardiographic activity) — to the declaration of death is generally about 5 minutes, but it may be as short as 2 minutes.1 The limited data available suggest that circulation does not spontaneously return after it has stopped for 2 minutes.2 The organs — most commonly the kidneys and liver but also the pancreas, lungs, and, in rare cases, the heart — are then recovered. To avoid obvious conflicts of interest, neither the surgeon who recovers the organs nor any other personnel involved in transplantation can participate in end-of-life care or the declaration of death.

The outcomes for organs transplanted after cardiac death are similar to those for organs transplanted after brain death. However, the length of time varies as to which organs can be deprived of oxygen (the interval from cessation of circulation to the initiation of perfusion with cold preservation solutions) and still be transplanted successfully. It is best to retrieve the liver less than 30 minutes after the withdrawal of life-sustaining measures; the kidneys and pancreas may often be recovered up to 60 minutes after such withdrawal.1 The extent of a patient's remaining circulatory and respiratory function may reveal whether death is likely to follow soon after extubation. If a patient does not die quickly enough to permit the recovery of organs, end-of-life care continues and any planned donation is canceled. At present, this may happen in up to 20% of cases."
http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/357/3/209 (I think you have to subscribe to get the link to work--I'll see if I can find a public version.)

Even doctors are worried about this sort of thing happening:
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/extract/291/6/732?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=organ+donation&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&resourcetype=HWCIT (You have to subscribe to get the entire text.)

[Hekate]

39. I've carried a donor card since they became available & will continue to do so

That's over 30 years now. My basic plan is to use them up and wear them out myself, but if there are any leftover parts at my death, I surely won't need them in the next life.

What this doc did was very wrong, but notice that he was caught. The system needs work, but I don't think we should abandon the concept.

Hekate

[FreedRadical]

40. Thank you k4d

My sister is on the kidney donor list. We pray for her every day. It has been almost two years of dialysis. She would not allow any of us to give one of ours because of the risks and recovery time, pu to 6mo. We are not rich people. Instead she has put all faith in the American Kidney Association. This a faith we all have. My sister is a kind and loving person. We as a people can not afford to become so jaded that we allow others to die because of mistrust.

[knitter4democracy]

51. I'm so sorry for your sister. I lost a kidney last fall.

I had a bizarre (the pathologist's term) tumor, and having lost one, I'm at higher risk for kidney failure and losing my other one. Kidney failure and dialysis are just plain awful to go through (doable but very hard), and so many people can't imagine how hard it is.

Does your sister have a shawl or blanket for dialysis? They can get so chilly. Let me know if she needs a blanket--I could do up a nice polar fleece one, if she'd like.

[DemBones DemBones]

54. Was your tumor destroying itself? That's what happened

to a friend who had kidney cancer and had that kidney removed. That was in 1990 and she's still cancer-free; I hope you will do as well. :hug:

[knitter4democracy]

56. No, it was spreading.

It was a very large tumor that had pretty much obliterated my right kidney and had spread into the fatty tissue between the liver and kidney. After the three pathologists at our hospital decided they didn't know what it was, they sent it to a kidney tumor pathologist, and he took three weeks to decide he'd never seen anything like it but that, while it looked like cancer and acted like cancer, it wasn't really cancer and wouldn't metastasize. I hope he's right. We're still keeping track of me, just to be safe.

[DarbyUSMC]

41. My friend has a bumper sticker that says:

"Don't take your organs to heaven. Heaven knows we need them here."

To each their own. There are many people who have signed organ donation cards but gladly, not many of those people meet their demise in accidents or in circumstances where they can donate. They may die of illness or hopefully, from old age. People waiting for organs aren't wishing for people to be killed so that they can live. It's a situation where one death gives a second chance at life to several people.

Because many people are skittish about organ donation in the first place and because people who are led to sign donor cards aren't usually the ones out on the highways and byways (generally speaking) who are getting into fatal accidents, what I posted in post #12 will be the new way, in my opinion, for kidney donations. It won't help people waiting for hearts and livers but right now we have well over 290,000 people on dialysis. Not all of those people are waiting for a kidney. There are about 9,000 transplants a year from non-living donors.

[FreedRadical]

42. Pay it forward made a good screenplay

but it makes life amazing. Thank you for the info Darby, I'll look into it.

[WhiteTara]

43. Almanac of the Dead

come to life

[orleans]

45. singsong: C..R..E..E..P..Y....

[DemBones DemBones]

47. I read an article by a doctor/med school prof recently that upset me.

This was the most shocking paragraph in the article:

Every set of criteria for "brain death" includes an apnea test. ("Apnea" means the absence of breathing.) This test, which has no benefit for the comatose patient and, in fact, aggravates the patient's condition, is done without the knowledge or consent of family members. The apnea test, during which the ventilator is turned off for up to 10 minutes, can induce "brain death" or cardiac arrest. Its sole purpose is to determine the patient's inability to breathe on his own in order to declare "brain death."



If a patient is dependent on a ventilator, and the ventilator is turned off for up to 10 minutes, it seems obvious to me that the intent is to cause brain death so that the person's organs can be harvested for transplant.

Doing it without the knowledge or consent of family members shows that doctors know it's wrong, know that no one would agree to have a loved one's ventilator turned off long enough to cause brain death.

Many patients are on ventilators for a period of time and recover completely. How many others whose organs were harvested would have recovered if the ventilator hadn't been turned off?

The 28 year-old son of a friend of mine had a brain aneurysm. The family was told he was brain dead within a few hours after he arrived at the hospital. He was an organ donor, really believed in organ donation, so of course they agreed to have his organs harvested. The hospital kept him alive for at least a week after declaring him brain dead in order to arrange for all the transplants. Now you know it costs a lot to spend a week in a hospital on a ventilator, with an IV, maybe a nasogastric feeding tube, and a catheter, and nursing care. But the hospital didn't charge the family anything. That gives you an idea how much organs are worth. But he was worth so much more to his family and I have to wonder if he could have been saved, if his organ donor card led to his death.

"First, do no harm" is no longer the guiding principle of medicine.

[knitter4democracy]

52. Hubby says no.

He's run codes, declared death, and signed death certs. He says that the test is done for 30-40 seconds at most, since most people would start breathing by then if they can breathe on their own. If they don't, they're ventillated again. He is shocked and horrified by the ten minutes citation in the article. He was never taught that, he never saw that, and he's sure that it is totally wrong.

Organs donation doesn't make anywhere near as much money as cash procedures (plastic surgery, laser stuff, etc.). Hospitals offer organ transplant surgery so that they can save lives and have the reputation that they save lives. It's an amazingly costly procedure, no matter which organ is involved, and the surgeons who do it tend to work insane hours (many aren't married or, if divorced, don't have custody, since they're in the hospital for over 100 hours a week all the time). They're at the top of their field, but they don't make the money that other surgeons make. A lot of their salary comes from grant money, actually.

[DemBones DemBones]

53. Hubby could be mistaken, could be unaware of unethical practices of others.

After all, a lot of doctors and funeral directors have been involved and are probably still involved in stealing bones and other parts of bodies before cremation or burial, replacing bones with PVC pipe to make the body look ok at the viewing.

Honest people believe others are honest, too, and are often surprised at what some will do.


Also, please ask him how hospitals can afford the kind of care I described here if they're not profiting from transplants.

The 28 year-old son of a friend of mine had a brain aneurysm. The family was told he was brain dead within a few hours after he arrived at the hospital. He was an organ donor, really believed in organ donation, so of course they agreed to have his organs harvested. The hospital kept him alive for at least a week after declaring him brain dead in order to arrange for all the transplants. Now you know it costs a lot to spend a week in a hospital on a ventilator, with an IV, maybe a nasogastric feeding tube, and a catheter, and nursing care. But the hospital didn't charge the family anything. That gives you an idea how much organs are worth. But he was worth so much more to his family and I have to wonder if he could have been saved, if his organ donor card led to his death.

[knitter4democracy]

57. Brain aneurysm killed my aunt, too. It's a horrible thing.

I'm so sorry you lost him. The only way that they can save someone in that case is if they catch it when it's happening, which is rare, or if it's really small and they catch it early enough. Most of the time, it's too late by the time someone gets to the hospital. They're already gone.

Many hospitals get grant money for organ transplant teams from the various associations, the federal government to pay for the study, Medicare, and insurance companies that pay for the surgeries and after care. Many hospitals don't do organ transplants, though, because it's such an expensive thing. They don't make as much money on the surgeries and such as they do on pneumonia and most other admissions and basic surgeries.

[cutlassmama]

55. My mother recovered after being on a ventilator for a week eom

[knitter4democracy]

58. That's wonderful!

Vents really help a lot of people have the time they need to heal up.