Human Bodies: Donation for Medicine and Research (Bioethics Report)

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Human Bodies: Donation for Medicine and Research
http://www.nuffieldbioethics.org/sites/default/files/Donation_full_report.pdf

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"Answers depend much on the way questions are asked. The Nuffield Council on Bioethics has posed a huge question: how far can society go in its demands on people to act in what many regard as a good cause – that of providing bodily material to benefit others?"

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Press Release:
Ethics body suggests NHS pays for funerals of organ donors
http://www.nuffieldbioethics.org/news/ethics-body-suggests-nhs-pays-funerals-organ-donors

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In the UK it is against the law to offer or accept payment to donate organs for the treatment of others. “We endorse this and agree that living donors, such as kidney, blood and bone marrow donors, should not receive payment other than direct and complete reimbursement of the costs brought about by their donation,” said Professor Strathern. “Rewarding living organ donors by paying more than this does not change the risks of donation, but there is a possibility that it might undermine the motive of helping others in need - we believe this motive should be preserved as far as possible.”

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Much coverage:

Dead serious: Free funerals to boost organ donation?
Medical ethics group issues recommendations to increase organ donation in Britain
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/44848679/ns/today-today_health/t/dead-serious-free-funerals-boost-organ-donation/#.TpRfSOvC4cg

Organ donors 'should have their funerals paid for'
An ethics body says a shortage of organs for transplant could be tackled by paying funeral expenses of donors
http://www.webmd.boots.com/nhs/news/20111011/organ-donors-should-have-their-funerals-paid-for

Group: Organ donors should get free funeral
http://ktar.com/category/local-news-articles/20111010/Group:-Organ-donors-should-get-free-funeral/

Should organ donors' funeral expenses be met by the NHS?
A report from the Nuffield Council on Bioethics suggests that the NHS should pay for the funerals of organ donors to boost the number of organs available for transplant operations. Do you agree?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/poll/2011/oct/11/funeral-expenses-nhs?newsfeed=true

Free funerals touted as way to boost organ donor rates in UK
http://www.thenational.ae/news/worldwide/europe/free-funerals-touted-as-way-to-boost-organ-donor-rates-in-uk

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http://www.hastingsobserver.co.uk/news/observer-comment/observer_comment_organ_donation_and_funeral_expenses_1_3149371

Observer Comment: Organ donation and funeral expenses

THERE are 8,000 people in this country currently waiting for an organ transplant. The average cost of a funeral today is almost £1,500.

The sums speak for themselves. What better way could there be to encourage people to give up their organs once they die.

To give someone the chance of life is one of the most selfless acts anyone can make.

The Nuffield Council of Bioethics appears to have come up with a very good idea.

It believes that by encouraging people to become donors by offering to pay for their funeral expenses more will sign up in the long term.

There are 18 million people already on the Organ Donor Register. But the NHS wants another seven million donors by the year 2013.

Well-known local character, Duncan Sharp, was inspired to become an organ donor by his life-long friend Dick Pearse.

Dick, the landlord of the Plough in Cock Marling, requires dialysis three times a week.

He was diagnosed several years ago and Duncan immediately offered one of his kidneys before signing up to become a donor.

Sadly Duncan died last year but his legacy lives on. He helped save the lives of two adults who had serious illnesses.

With many people struggling to cope with the costs of daily living today in these challenging economic times, knowing that their funeral expenses would be taken care of could be a major relief as well as a perfect incentive.

Nobody wants to burden their family with expensive funeral costs once they have left this mortal coil.

What better inscription to have on your tombstone than ‘this person helped saved the life of another’?’

We are a fickle nation when it comes to talking about death.

And like Duncan’s sister Stella Douglas states it was the whole experience of helping someone to have new life that truly helped her come to terms with death.

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http://www.bmj.com/content/343/bmj.d6557/reply

News:
Organ donors’ funeral costs should be paid, report says
Nigel Hawkes
BMJ 2011;343:doi:10.1136/bmj.d6557 (Published 11 October 2011)
[Extract] [Full text] [PDF]

Funeral expenses or beginning of a slippery slope?
Debasish Debnath, Specialist Registrar
Department of surgery, Frimley Park Hospital, Frimley, GU16 7UJ
Any 'reasonable' step that improves the organ donation rate is welcome. However payment of funeral costs is unlikely to improve the donation rate, as exemplified by the working party's own admission that 'only a tiny fraction of those who do sign the register are potential donors at their time of death.' Comparison with existing arrangements for people who donate their bodies to medicals schools is debatable. The aesthetics of a fully 'dissected' body (usually performed by the medical students in their early years) is different than carefully performed 'organ retrieval' by an experienced organ retrieval team. Furthermore, why should the living-donors be excluded? After all, they are the ones who are taking paramount risks by volunteering to be donors, bearing in mind that all surgical procedures have an inherent morbidity and mortality, however small may it be [1]. Six living liver donor deaths had been cited by Bramstedt on Literature search [2]. Cynics would see such a decision as the beginning of a slippery slope, eventually leading to an open market system allowing full payment for organ donation.

References:

[1]. Renz JF, Roberts JP. Long-term complications of living donor liver transplantation. Liver Transpl. 2000;6(6 suppl 2):S73-S76.

[2]. Bramstedt KA. Living liver donor mortality: where do we stand? Am J Gastroenterol. 2006 ;101(4):755-9.

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http://theconversation.edu.au/free-funerals-for-organ-donors-are-donation-incentives-unethical-3809

Free funerals for organ donors: are donation incentives unethical?
Wendy Rogers

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Is it ethical?
Organ donation is based on the notion of the gift, which captures both the idea that organs should be freely given rather than taken, and that organs are “priceless” – not the kind of thing that should be bought and sold for money.

Altruism is the core ethical value underlying these ideas, a value that is cherished within the organ donation and wider community. So the challenge is to find ways of encouraging donation without starting on the slippery slope to a market in organs.

The Nuffield Council on Bioethics claims that offering a free funeral is a form of reward that encourages rather than undermines altruism.

Free funerals are not in themselves attractive enough to make a person donate when they would otherwise not.

It’s not an offer too good to refuse, and the benefit of the free funeral goes to the deceased person’s family rather than the donor herself.

We could say the donor is doubly altruistic – once in donating her organs, and again in saving her family the cost of a funeral.

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