Why People Don’t Donate Their Kidneys

[Clark]

http://nyti.ms/1iVUQ2N

Why People Don’t Donate Their Kidneys
By SALLY SATEL

THE national transplant list just passed a morbid milestone: More than 100,000 people now wait for kidneys.

We are at this point largely because even though demand is growing, donations from living and deceased donors have remained flat, between 16,500 and 17,000 annually, for the past decade. Between now and this time tomorrow, 14 people will die, many after languishing on dialysis for 5 to 10 years, while their names slowly crawled up the queue.

The problem lies in the requirement that all organs be given altruistically (as a friend did for me in donating her right kidney eight years ago). Federal law is widely interpreted as forbidding donors to receive anything of tangible value in return for their lifesaving deeds.

....

[Clark]

Yet another repetition. The internal contradiction of her title and her acknowledgement that she is the recipient of such a gift is more starkly breathtaking than usual.

Regardless, barring a technical breakthrough, the pressure in favor of attempting to increase supply by adding compensation continues to grow. The question becomes, how is this to be managed? Under what regulatory framework? With what institutional safeguards, self reinforcing through internal incentives at all levels?

[Clark]

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/12/opinion/making-organ-donations-worthwhile.html?_r=0

Making Organ Donations Worthwhile

To the Editor:

Re “Why People Don’t Donate Their Kidneys” (Sunday Review, May 4):

Sally Satel argues that we should compensate kidney donors because other methods for obtaining enough kidneys to meet the needs of patients will not work. But one other method is possible that she does not discuss: using organ exchanges.

...

The writer is a professor of psychiatry and director of the Masters of Bioethics Program at Columbia University.


To the Editor:

As a kidney recipient, I barely knew my altruistic donor, a 49-year-old woman. She said she did it because she could!

I, too, believe that donors should be financially compensated. It is definitely a financial burden on the donor. If you’re working, you take many days off as vacation or sick leave to complete the rigorous requirements needed by the hospital. My donor spent four days in the hospital and two weeks recuperating.

...

Westfield, N.J.


To the Editor:

Sally Satel is quite correct to identify the problem of organ donation as a lack of incentives, but we need to remove financial disincentives for the poor and the middle class — the ones more likely to die waiting for a kidney — before we start creating incentives for those who are already advantaged by the system.

...

President
Stop Organ Trafficking Now!
Washington


To the Editor:

Sally Satel is right in advocating for providing financial incentives to potential kidney donors. We clearly need more donors, and incentives work. I donated one of my kidneys last year, to a person I do not know, and with no compensation other than a tremendous sense of satisfaction.

...

Charlestown, R.I.