Posted on 04/12/2007 6:27:57 AM PDT by shrinkermd
A man whose family agreed to donate his organs for transplant upon his death was wrongly declared brain-dead by two doctors at a Fresno hospital, records and interviews show.
Only after the man's 26-year-old daughter and a nurse became suspicious was a third doctor, a neurosurgeon, brought in. He determined that John Foster, 47, was not brain-dead, a condition that would have cleared the way for his organs to be removed, records of the Feb. 21 incident show.
"It kind of blew my mind," said the daughter, Melanie Sanchez, "like they were waiting like vultures, waiting for someone to die so they could scoop them up."
Foster, who had suffered a brain hemorrhage, died 11 days later at Community Regional Medical Center in Fresno. By then, Sanchez said, his organs were not viable for donation.
The apparent close call is the second in recent months to raise questions about whether, amid a national organ shortage, doctors might be compromising the care of prospective donors. Law enforcement authorities in San Luis Obispo County are investigating whether a transplant surgeon tried to hasten the death of a 26-year-old patient last year by ordering high volumes of pain medication.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
This is why I DO NOT check the organ donation box when I renew my driver’s license.
Me, too!!
I'm glad they saved him! [smirk]
Methinks there is a bit of confusion regarding terminal and brain dead. Brain dead is a distinct medical condition, but there are numerous other variables that can lead to a terminal prognosis for organ transplant reasons.
They tried and failed to convince the family that he was hours, days from death with no possibility of recovery, and the tighty righties are now seizing the moment to create another Shiavo for their hyperbolic BS.
Carry on! My analysis is complete.
Using that criteria, your chances of even donating are practically nil. very few terminal patients ever achieve "brain death". What initiates transplant, is the medical fact that the patient is terminal, not brain dead.
YES, Doctors, hospitals, et al DO compromise care in order to harvest the high profit organs.
They decide, “patient will die anyways” so presto you are dead.
consider the slur of “donor cycle” for motorcycle accidents. They have a predisposition to sacrifice care in order to harvest organs right off the bat.
What should we expect from a society that kills unborn babies for their stem cells.
Me either.
THIS part made me cringe-
After Sanchez agreed to donate, she said, she got calls “at least twice a day” from the organ group, saying: “We have to get the body parts in a certain time. Your dad can be a life-saver to someone else. How is he doing today? Did he go up or down?”
YIKES!
I currently have the box checked on my DL, but the next time it is up for renewal, the box will not be checked.
I’m wondering though-
there IS ALWAYS an agenda behind every story published by the MSM. What do you suppose is their agenda in this story?
I don’t understand why his organs were not usable by the time he died. This tells me they were only usable while he was alive....
Hmmm.
Is the recipient charged for the organ?
If it is truly organ donation and saving a life and all that jazz, the doctors should be willing to do it for little or nothing, IMO, at least the organ removal part of it.
So, are they harvesting organs before the patient is really dead? If so, this is speeding up the death, isn’t it?
Isn’t that euthanasia?
Your analysis is not quite complete. There is a great deal of abuse potential with the current system. For example, a wealthy patient who is severely injured, but not really "hours away from death" becomes a candidate for organ harvesting. A couple of corrupt doctors working with the family who will inherit the estate could easily facilitate a murder.
As an anesthesiologist, I have been asked to be the one to pull the plug in the OR and pronounce the patient dead prior to harvesting. In these situations, the OR team knows nothing about the will of the patient or the character of the family.
This is why the donor box on my drivers license is unchecked !
Yes. See post # 11.
Exactly.
Not a chance. This is big business and the surgeons are only a small part of it. The organizations that coordinate the procurement of organs are large bureaucracies.
I guess you didn't read the entire article.
Yep. In your world, doctors may harvest organs from people who will die someday anyway.
Not the criteria I would use.
I don’t want to go on the cart.....
Not as I see it. I think to call it Euthanasia, is not rational. Euthanasia infers the killing of living thing that was compromised medically or would have lived without intervention at the very least.
Hastening a impending death by not intervening medically could be considered killing by some, but certainly not murder by law.
In my opinion, if the death of a person is certain, hastening that death by a few days to protect the viability of needed organs that will add many years to the quality of life for multiple people is a rational thing to contemplate, assuming the person making the donation has agreed upon the terms in advance of his/her demise.
This is the root rationality of the donor system, and in this particular case, the family was not able to comply with the donors wishes and now is trying to shift the responsibility to the hospital and doctor. The fact that the family was not able to comply, happen all the time, but to try to shift the responsibility to the doctor, seems quite petty and egregious to me.
This is not rational. It is hypocrisy and emotional laden clap-trap.
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