LifeSharers.org

[dodger]

Has anyone from the forum joined this organization? 

[ohtobeahayes]

No, I didn't know it existed until I read the comments on the Good Question page!  What do you think of that? I feel like that holds some ethical stuff (for me personally) also. If I happen to need a kidney, and so does a child who has never had a transplant and the parents aren't donors either...I think I'd rather hang on tight with some dialysis and let the child get a kidney first.

Or someone who has been on dialysis for a long time and isn't coping so well with it anymore...if I'm just starting to need some support, I'd rather they get a kidney first. I don't feel entitled to a kidney first just because I donated. I might just have to read more about it, but I don't like how I feel when I think about it just yet.

[treehugger]

I hadn't heard about it, either, until reading this post. I don't know how I feel about it, but my gut reaction is that it's an unneeded organization.

Now, I do feel pretty strongly about needing more people to agree to donate usable organs after death (in fact, I have trouble thinking of good reasons not to do this), but I don't know if this is the way to convince more people. No one likes to be preached at.

The sad truth is that most people who are against organ donation after death would never be convinced it's a good idea until they or a loved one needs an organ. Some lessons people really do need to learn for themselves.

Kara

[livingdonor101]

Lifesharers operates outside the official transplant infrastructure of OPTN, DHHS and the like. This means they have legal authority. So, in the same way that in most states, one's next of kin actually makes the decision to donate one's organs, signing a Lifesharers card means nothing. Next of kin don't have to adhere to it, nor do doctors or the transplant facility.

Cristy
www.livingdonor101.com

[dodger]

My take was they see to it you are moved to the top of the list for receiving a transplant.  I was wondering how they had the ability to do that.  What gave them the power.  There is no charge for this service.  I thought it rather strange actually that no one had mentioned this organization before if they had this ability to say who gets a transplant.

[Donna Luebke]

When groups emerge outside of the established transplant network or system, I first ask myself why and what do they represent.  Lifesharers represents an entity saying if you want a transplant you have to first agree to be a donor (by advanced directive or being a member of their group).  If do a little historical research, there was a White Paper published by the OPTN Ethics Committee in the mid-90s proposing this very same thing.  The OPTN did not run with this idea, Lifesharers did.  I found it ironic that the OPTN members and UNOS were not receptive to Dave Undis when he asked to speak to its Board about an allocation priority for his group. 

If someone is a registered organ, tissue, and eye donor via a state donor registry or an advanced directive document, Lifeshares membership does not give them an allocation priority to get an organ should they qualify for transplant in the future.     

[Clark]

When I was on the Ad Hoc Public Solicitation of Organ Donors Committee of the OPTN, we discussed the LifeSharers concept and organization.  We concluded, as we advised the OPTN/UNOS board about all our deliberations, that the NOTA explicitly allows direction to a named recipient, not a class or group of people.  As a result, LifeSharers tells members to tell their loved ones to contact them for the current list of LifeSharers members on the waiting list.  That way they can, theoretically direct the donations to named recipients.  As far as I know, it hasn't been attempted yet, so it's still unclear how a transplant center and OPO will handle it.