Should brain dead patients be kept alive for organ donation?

I'm really not sure, Jeni where I stand with this, in view of time-lines. I honestly don't think the nitty-gritty of it all has been addressed sufficiently by those who are promoting this suggestion, and I have no personal experience upon which I'd be able to base my decisions.
If I were pushed to make a stance today, then I would support maintenance of organ health for no longer than 6 months.

May I ask how long Peter waited? To have been given another 14 years was clearly wonderful, and I wonder if he may have had more, if an organ was available through this discussed method?

He as lucky he only waited a year. But that was a year I don't rally want to look back on!

This is clearly an emotive issue, and I do not believe for one minute in a sort of Dr Strangelove scenario where "people" would be "kept alive" for long periods of time.
If you die in a RTA, you are dead. Full stop. And organs start to deteriorate from that moment. I believe the "window" is 45 minutes for potential donation. The ideal donor will already be in hospital unable to survive the trauma which has occurred, he/she will be on a life support system while at least 2 independent senior doctors will have to agree brain death. Organs must be in the best possible condition for transplantation so at this stage time will be taken to register their availability to transplant coordinators in the various fields, and no action is taken until after relatives have said their goodbyes . I am sorry johanna feels she would not be able to say goodbye to someone on a life support system but clinically "dead". All I can say is that I would rather do that than see a parent/wife/son/daughter say goodbye to a CONSCIOUS person dying for want of an organ.
Like Jeni and perhaps others I do not know about, our daughters have a father who would otherwise have been dead within 6 months, DH has led one daughter up the aisle and beome a proud grandfather twice over. I do not know who his donor was, but I am profoundly grateful to him/her and his/her/relatives for agreeing to organ donation.How many people will die because of sentiment? At the moment of bereavement it must be an impossible decision to take which is why I believe that donor cards should be binding and next of kin should not be able to overrule that commitment.

OK as usual I have spoken first and read the article second and I apologise for my knee jerk reaction. I do not retract a syllable but I realise this was not the original question.
But quite honestly, I do not altogether believe this, I suspect it is an attempt to raise the profile of organ donation. With increased effectiveness of safety features in cars, crash helmets for motor cyclists etc there are fewer young healthy organs available than there are people dying for want of a transplant.
Mnay countries operate a system of opting OUT of organ donation instead of opting in as at present in the UK, where, you may not realise, a potential donor 's signing of a card is entirely non-binding on their relatives and can be overruled by grieving next of kin.
The year after DH's transplant we included donor cards in all our Christmas cards and the girls gave them out to all their friends at school and university, but "scare stories" such as George Best drinking away his transplanted liver do untold damage as people start to have second thoughts.

I will echo gracesmums Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. My husband recently had his second kidney transplant on February 3rd. A very precious gift from our youngest son.

It is a very emotive issue and would need to be handled with the utmost sensitivity BUT WHY NOT if a person has made his/her wishes clear by signing the organ donor list.

Transplantation does change peoples lives and as jeni said the gift is not just to the recipient but to their whole family. In our case we went on to have two wonderful sons, and very happy normal family life which is now blessed by three beautiful grandchildren.

Well said, grace and sook.

I don't think my rellies would have a problem about saying goodbye to me if I were brain dead and a machine was keeping my organs usable. However, I will speak to them about it and say that I have donated my organs in such a case and that it would be nice to feel they would respect my wishes. I'll say this even though I don't think they'd have a problem with it. As for funeral arrangements afterwards, that I leave entirely up to them. I have no preferences as to being buried, cremated, or left out for the vultures. (They know this already as well).

This "keeping people alive" subject is so emotionally charged. Total desperation of the NHS has caused this idea to be born.
We should have the opt out system, and then this idea need never have surfaced. I am a nurse and I know that the medical community would never care less for a patient in the hope that they could harvest an organ for someone else.
The organ transplant waiting lists are an unnecessary tragedy that need not happen if we did the sensible thing and opted out. Unfortunately the people who vote against it are not realistic enough to see the benefits.
Brain dead is essentially dead - if you've seen it - you know that.

Perhaps the reference to keeping "someone" alive shold be changed to "keeping organs usable" then there is no fuzz about whether the person is dead or not.

bagitha, that description would be more apt, I think. It's the word 'someone' that is the problem. When the brain is dead the 'someone' is no longer there. The organs are alive but the person has gone.
My friend's husband received a liver transplant 5 years ago. He had (and still does have) Hepatitis C, which happened because he was given a contaminated blood transfusion 50 years ago after a motorbike accident. He was 'knocking on heaven's door' until the transplant. I think he has given a lot of thought to the person who died, as have his family.

I am puzzled by this. Just over 20 years ago my sister was fatally injured in a road accident. Her body was kept on the life support system for 48 hours after she was declared dead before the organs were harvested. This was standard practice then to ensure that there could be no accusations later that the patient was not dead, or their death was expedited by the removal of the organs. I assume systems have changed since then so all that is being proposed is a return to a previous practice.

Joanna, I have been in the circumstance you would find impossible. In a time before mobile phones I was away on a short holiday in France when my sister's accident happened, away for the two desperate days when every attempt was made to save her life, away for her eventual death. I returned home to find a grieving family and a sister who had died in my absence. To go to the hospital and see her still in Intensive Care, still breathing and warm, her skin still rosy, was an immense consolation to me. I knew she was dead but I could hold her warm hand as if she was still living see her chest rising and falling, as if she was breathing naturally and I could say my last goodby. I am so thankful my parents made the decision to donate her organs that resulted in her still being in suspended animation when I returned home. My last memories of my sister are not a of corpse but of someone lying in bed in a hospital room, sleeping, warm, looking her own dear self. I know this was an illusion but one that gave, and still gives infinite comfort.

What a wonderful post, FlicketyB. I found it very upsetting when reading Gloria Hunniford's book about her daughter, Caron
Keating, when she related how the nurse said to them that they should let her two small sons kiss her goodbye whilst she was still warm and breathing. The alternative is so horrible to contemplate.
Perhaps every patient could be kept in the semblance of life until the family have all said goodbye, even if there is no permission for organ donation.

When my daughter was close to death my mind refused to contemplate seeing her dead and I would not have wanted her four children to see her either. I know it is believed that some people need to see the finality of death in order to get 'closure' but having seen my FIL laid out in the funeral parlour, I know that he did not look anything like himself and I would have preferred to remember him as he was in life.

Flickety you have shared a special memory to illustrate the humanity of how this proposal can look and if nothing else has swayed people's opinion, this surely does. So many families are bereft because of the way they have to part with their loved ones and your story is comforting for us to contemplate should we ever find ourselves in this situation

I will add my thanks for your story too, Flickety.

Me too.
But it seems that they actually do keep patients going sometimes to facilitate successful transplants.
But we are of course only talking about a minority of dying patients. if they are dying of a disease, then they are unlikely to be useful organ donors. Their organs do have to be in a healthy state.

My grandson is alive today because he received a donated kidney when he was 4 years old, having been on dialysis 6 nights a week for some months. He is now coming up for his 22nd birthday. He is at university & doing as well as any of his peers. He is alive because of the courageous & generous decision made by a family that I don't know. All I know is the city they live in. I think of them a lot, and once a year we remember them as a family.
To read all your support for organ donation is very heartening. My grandson's kidney cannot go on much longer. All I would ask of you all is to talk to your families about organ donation. If you make your wishes clear to everyone it makes it so much easier for a grieving family when these decisions have to be made.

supernan
I appreciate your post. The family of my husbands donated kidney had to make this decision, and I can't thank them enough. Peter has been dead now for almost 9 years, but I still really appreciate the extra 14 years or so we had together,
We both took early retirement at 50, which meant we had 9wonderful years with each other. We both worked part time and spent the rest of the time sailing round the channel islands , Brittany and Normandy. They were years I would not have missed for the world!
Thank you to whoever you are who had the courage to give your relatives kidney!

Supernan I send your grandson my very best wishes. I'll bet the family who made that courageous decision all those years ago would be very proud to know what he has done with his life so far.

When my husband first suffered renal failure in 1977 we were told he was a difficult match and that he would be dead within 6 months if he didn't have a kidney transplant. Fortunately his Dad was a good match and the kidney lasted for almost 28 years when he once again had to rely on haemo dialysis to keep him alive.

Until this recent transplant (2 weeks ago) he was on and off the UK transplant list due to various illnesses caused by the cocktail of drugs he has had to take for most of his adult life. He lived for the phone call to tell him that a kidney was available for him. It never came. Because of antibodies that had built up over the years he was told he had only a 14% chance of recieving a kidney from a deceased donor. Our youngest son offered to be a donor and extensive tests revealed that he was healthy and that the kidney as a good match a 1/1 so I believe. My husband was discharged from hospital just 6 days after the transplant took place, far too early in my opinion because within 48 hours he was admitted to our local A&E with post operative complications. He has since had a blood transfusion and has been transferred back to the hospital where the op took place.

There is much to be done about educating people about organ failure and it needs to be publicised more. With the current epidemic of diabetes which can lead to kidney failure there are going to be an awful lot of people needing dialysis and kidney transplants. I was often asked the question " How long will your husband need dialysis"? The answer was always the same " Until he dies unless a suitable kidney comes along". There were many shocked faces believe me, because they hadn't realised that dialysis is not a cure. The number of deaths amongst the dialysis patients where my husband was treated far outnumbered the transplants.

I think that we should have a system in place were we opt out only if we do not wish to donate our organs after death and our wishes should be legal and binding as if in a will.

Having an organ transplant is a huge decision to make It's success is not guarranteed and there is heartbreak for some along the way. But it is truly a Gift of Life made possible mostly by some anonymous donors unselfishness.

Thank you

Such courageous stories and there could be so many more if only people would ensure they donated their organs. Opting out instead of in will certainly help. Anyone who worries about donating a kidney should understand that we only need one. I have lived with one kidney for six years now and have no problems. The dodgy one I had removed was making me dangerously ill. I have a friend who was born with one kidney, has four children and forgets that she only has one till something like an x-ray when she gets asked where it's gone. I have friends with donated kidneys living normal lives, and I remember one dear friend who died 45 years ago for want of a kidney.

It's the same with bone marrow donation - not a difficult thing to do, get tested and be available to make that gift of life if a match is found. So many children and teenagers are living in limbo until they can have that marrow donation and get on with their lives.

Thank you for your personal stories; they must surely clear any doubts anyone has about organ donation. The joy and relief of the partners and relatives is palpable. I think we should definitely have an opt out system.

And I also feel more comfortable about keeping the body going (a while) to keep the organs intact.

But I bet the tabloids hype this up!

Bound to!

Sook and supernan if anyone had any doubts about organ donation they should read your stories.
I am going to say a few words about "bone marrow donation".
I'm sure you all know this is the last ditch treatment for those with blood cancers that have failed to respond to other treatments. These include children and people of all other ages.
It is the stem cells in red bone marrow, the ones that produce all the other blood cells, that are transplanted. It used to be the case than doctors had to stick needles into the hip bones to extract the cells. These days they call it a stem cell transplant. Donors take a drug that stimulates their stem cells to increase (this needs a few injections) and some of them float into the blood. The donor then gets hooked up to a fancy machine (a bit like dialysis) for a few hours, to collect the precious cells. They look like a cupful of berry smoothie. Job done.These are then infused into the patient, who has had high dose chemo to kill off their own diseased cells. Within a few days the stem cells start to give them healthy blood.
Because there are so many genes that determine tissue type finding an exact match is almost impossible. But a close match can give someone their life back.
My friend had leukaemia in middle age. A transplant has allowed her to become a doting grandmother to three little girls.

Jess - I would love to be a living donor but I cannot even give blood in France. Is there an age limit for being a bone marrow donor? I know that it is possible for even very old people to have some organs can that be useful after death. We are all going to die, but I would take some comfort from knowing that somebody could benefit from my death.

You have to be under 50 and be a blood donor. Lots of us are excluded from giving blood - which makes it all the more important that those who can, do.
www.nhsbt.nhs.uk/bonemarrow/

Thank you JessM. A couple of years ago a young man from a neighbouring village needed a bone marrow transplant. There was huge local press coverage and the local pub hosted an event during which people were invited to register for bone marrow donation. The young man eventually got his transplant from an anonymous donor and has gone on to lead a healthy normal life.

Prior to my husbands transplant a young local girl with cystic fibrosis had a lung transplant she was literally weeks away from death. She is now home and after a few hitches recovering well. Again there was huge local press coverage which is fantastic but sadly the story is soon forgotten. Something really does need to be done about raising public awareness about organ donation etc and keeping it high profile.

I have donated blood several times and not thought much about it. However when my husband was given his blood transfusion I found myself thinking about the anonymous donor who had given up an hour of their time probably during a very busy day to possibly save someones life. I felt very grateful.