Child put ahead of adults on the transplant list receives 2nd set of lungs.

Just let the kid die peacefully in familiar surroundings, hopefully the moo and duh will have the sense to get sterilized and if they want another kid, to do a good thing and adopt one instead of conceiving another inviable special-needs kid who will probably die in less than two decades.

And if it wasn't for my organ degeneration issues and the chances of my adult organs going to brats, I would donate. As it is, when I die I will be cremated in a cardboard box and my ashes disposed of in the Pacific Ocean off of Big Sur or Cape Perpetua.

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malmsteen
Just let the kid die peacefully in familiar surroundings, hopefully the moo and duh will have the sense to get sterilized and if they want another kid, to do a good thing and adopt one instead of conceiving another inviable special-needs kid who will probably die in less than two decades.

Sadly, I fully expect them to try for another bio child after she inevitably dies. The father looks like the type that won't raise a kid that isn't biologically his.

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cfchevygirl


It's also been mentioned the matter of fit. I think this would be huge. Chyldren are still deveolping; she's not fully grown, so what would they have to do with an adult lung to make it fit inside a 10-year-old?

And -then- there the question of what happens if/when the little 10-year-old girl grows? A trimmed adult lung is not going to grow with her; will she, at some point, need a -third- lung transplant, because the trimmed lungs aren't working properly anymore?

Sometimes I think our technology has outrun our common sense.

I was half-listening to the news last night and heard an update that the kid isn't doing well. Something about not being off the ventilator at all? I suspect the cystic fibrosis won't have time to destroy this set of donor lungs because she won't make it that long.

You know she has to be doing much worse than represented because of all the Hell they raised to get the two sets of lungs, lungs that could have saved two peoples' lives.

I really agree with everything everyone has written with regard to the severe ethical issues this presents in letting politics dictate the donor priority list, as it is downright dangerous to allow everyone's sob story as an influential factor, as everyone has or thinks they have a sob story.

That said, what also worries me is the judge's injunction placing the child on the adult list, since this is a blatant infringement of the law on what really should be medical turf. Judges are rarely doctors, and judges rarely have any semblance of real medical training. The judge's injunction here requiring the kid to be placed on the adult donor recipient list overrides policy based on medical factors (including blood type, medical testing, ect) in favor of what is essentially a weak legal argument and highly publicized sob story. The removal of age as a basis for the list is not likely arbitrary, as the list was compiled of medical factors, and in many cases age IS a medical factor, not discrimination. To me this reeks of legal meddling in medical affairs, and that is dangerous for the following reasons which I will lay out in the next few paragraphs.

A note on legal intrusion in the medical field, if you don't mind. I am not a doctor, and I am not yet a lawyer, but I have finished two years of law school, and I can tell you that they do not teach you any form of medicine in law school. They do teach healthcare policy, if you choose to take those courses or go that route. Thus, while I do know nurses and other medical professionals that do complete law school, I would say that with few exceptions, lawyers are by no means qualified to make any strictly medical determination. That said, while I think there is a huge necessity for health law, it should always work with medical experts, and not against them. Note that I am coming from the position as someone who is working towards specializing in healthcare oriented law, and I am publishing a legal paper dealing (loosely) with legal ethics that touch on a medical issue.

That said, while there can be a clear divide between what is legal and what is medical, in cases where there isn't, I think it should be considered downright malpractice to proceed on a legal case where there are unresolved medical issues that the lawyer is not qualified to address. This is more about the right to get an organ transplant, this is about disregarding well thought out medically driven policy under the guise of the law. As a legal field, healthcare law can be dangerous in terms of making sure that the law does not override medical necessity (and not necessarily vice-versa, as there are some cases where I absolutely believe medical necessity overrides a stupid law, but not the that is NOT blanket statement).

What gets me is that this is a judicial precedent, and I worry that it may be used to later override medically based policies employed by HHS, hospitals, and other medical professionals. And that is dangerous.

On a less related note to my above rant, I love how one of the CNN articles quotes the parents as saying that they're not asking for special treatment. I mean, what did they think they were doing running to the media?

My theory is that the judge just wanted to play hero. He is too stupid to understand what cystic fibrosis actually is and that a double lung transplant for somebody suffering from end-stage CF is only staving off the inevitable for only a couple of years. But he got it into his head that the double lung transplant would give her a full and healthy life and all he had to do was grant it and he'd be lauded a hero.

But this is going to blow up in his face. This girl is going to die very soon, despite the transplant. It's been how long and she still cannot breathe without the assistance of a ventilator? He didn't consider the girl's condition and what a transplant was going to do. Nobody in the end stages of any illness should be getting new organs, unless a transplant is the cure. He's going to have ethics boards on his ass and his name brought up in case studies in law schools and any other ruling he makes in the future will be heavily scrutinized.

------------------------------------------------------------
"Why children take so long to grow? They eat and drink like pig and give nothing back. Must find way to accelerate process..."
- Dr. Yi Suchong, Bioshock

"Society does not need more children; but it does need more loved children. Quite literally, we cannot afford unloved children - but we pay heavily for them every day. There should not be the slightest communal concern when a woman elects to destroy the life of her thousandth-of-an-ounce embryo. But all society should rise up in alarm when it hears that a baby that is not wanted is about to be born."
- Garrett Hardin

"I feel like there's a message involved here somehow, but then I couldn't stop laughing at all the plotholes, like the part when North Korea has food."
- Youtube commentor referring to a North Korean cartoon.

"Reality is a bitch when it slowly crawls out of your vagina and shits in your lap."
- Reddit comment

"Bitch wants a baby, so we're gonna fuck now. #bareback"
- Cambion

Oh whatever. Abortion doctors are crimestoppers."
- Miss Hannigan

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paragon schnitzophonic
My theory is that the judge just wanted to play hero. He is too stupid to understand what cystic fibrosis actually is and that a double lung transplant for somebody suffering from end-stage CF is only staving off the inevitable for only a couple of years. But he got it into his head that the double lung transplant would give her a full and healthy life and all he had to do was grant it and he'd be lauded a hero.

But this is going to blow up in his face. This girl is going to die very soon, despite the transplant. It's been how long and she still cannot breathe without the assistance of a ventilator? He didn't consider the girl's condition and what a transplant was going to do. Nobody in the end stages of any illness should be getting new organs, unless a transplant is the cure. He's going to have ethics boards on his ass and his name brought up in case studies in law schools and any other ruling he makes in the future will be heavily scrutinized.

Paragon, I agree with you. This is completely true, and a best case scenario.



Also, I don't understand the point of this idiotic "discrimination" outcry. I am white. If I go to live in, say, Africa or some part of Australia, my change of getting skin cancer are higher than those of a native, because, guess what, my skin is whiter. So I would have to take it into account. This is not discrimination or racism, it is fucking common sense.
Same thing when black people living in place like Europe are given suplements of vitamin D, otherwise their kids end up rachitic (this is the reason white skin evolved to begin with, btw). It is not discrimination, it is just a difference.
Same with this child. They weren't "discriminating" her, they were noticing that, being a CHILD she was smaller than an adult.

_______________________

“I was talking about children that have not been properly house-trained. Left to their own impulses and indulged by doting or careless parents almost all children are yahoos. Loud, selfish, cruel, unaffectionate, jealous, perpetually striving for attention, empty-headed, for ever prating or if words fail them simply bawling, their voices grown huge from daily practice: the very worst company in the world. But what I dislike even more than the natural child is the affected child, the hulking oaf of seven or eight that skips heavily about with her hands dangling in front of her -- a little squirrel or bunny-rabbit -- and prattling away in a baby's voice.”


― Patrick O'Brian, The Truelove


lib'-er-ty: the freedom given to you to make the wrong decision, based on the reasoned belief that you will normally make the right one.

@paragon, I thought about that, which is why I checked to see if this particular judge was elected or appointed. He was appointed and has been sitting on his particular bench for a good decade or so, which means its not as political as I anticipated. So maybe he's just an idiot or a breeder...I'd say both but we all know breeders are idiots.

I doubt a judge is authorized to overide factors like blood type (much less the more specific tissue matching) but I do agree that standard medical practices should prevail here. I say this both as a person who is screwed should she need an organ or bone marrow due to a rare blood type she does not share with any family members and a medical professional who briefly worked triaging organ and tissue donations.

At least we are not the only people in the world who question the ethics of the first set of lungs, although it ends up becoming an argument for changing the rules around organ donation.

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Sarah’s case is a classic illustration of the “rule of rescue.” Ethicist A.R. Jonsen coined the term to denote the imperative people feel to rescue identifiable individuals facing avoidable death. People may expend heroic efforts that either put others at risk or pose costs to society that could be more efficiently spent to prevent abstract deaths in the larger population. But the “baby in the well” is saved.

It was Jessica McClure, an 18-month-old girl who fell into a well in Midland, Texas, in 1987, who brought the rule of rescue intro millions of American living rooms. After 58 tense hours, emergency workers hoisted Jessica from the well; today she is a thriving mother of two. But Jessica’s case differed from Sarah’s: There was only one baby in a well. Saving her did not mean that another Jessica, in a well down the block, was left to suffocate.

And so we arrive at the most wrenching question of all: Did anyone die so that Sarah could live? When those adult lungs became available for the little girl, did another person, say a 21-year-old woman with cystic fibrosis, lose her claim on life?

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When matters of fairness in health care come to the fore, the media reflexively turn to bioethicists. Daniel Wikler, a medical ethics expert at Harvard, took a dim view of special pleading. “If the distribution of organs becomes subject to the success of individual publicity campaigns, with organs going to those who hire the best PR firms and lawyers, who on the waiting list would remain confident that their priority would be decided on the merits?” David Magnus, a bioethicist at Stanford University, stressed how important it is for people who donate to have “faith in the system and that we have a fair system that also does a good job of marshaling and stewarding this incredibly scarce resource.”

Well, what do you know? Lung transplant girl has pneumonia and her moo is calling it a "large set back." I'll say.

http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=news/local&id=9165642

How long before Moo starts begging for Double Lung Transplant #3? Let this poor girl go in peace already, what a miserable end to her life, not to mention, who is paying for all of these mounting medical bills?

Because of the judge's ruling that essentially forced the first transplant, the medical staff might have felt coerced to perform the rare second lung transplant to avoid legal problems. That more than anything else probably explains the second one.

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kman
Because of the judge's ruling that essentially forced the first transplant, the medical staff might have felt coerced to perform the rare second lung transplant to avoid legal problems. That more than anything else probably explains the second one.

Future Potential Problems Caused by this Case
I think so too k-man and this is definitely a future problem for UNOS, organ donations, and organ recipients from here on out. What is to stop the next hysterical parent from holding up the whole process in court, allowing viable donated organs to die in the interim, and two additional deaths while everyone involved is scrambling around trying to decide who gets which organ via the court systems? Also, this can't be good for the majority of people, and therefore potential donors, who are disgusted and disillusioned by this entire thing. All this appears to have done is to cause less people to become donors, or to revoke their prior donor status, thereby making donated organs even more scarce than they already are. The rules and regulations for organ transplant recipients needs to be completely reevaluated and OBJECTIVE rules need to be created, implemented, and enforced without fail immediately. This subjective point system determining who is most in need which is currently in use obviously isn't working anymore. down


Public Opinion Regarding Who Should NOT Get Organs
While this has been going on I have read literally thousands of reader comments about it and an overall prevailing opinion is that alcoholics should never be eligible for livers or any other organ thought to be ruined by alcoholism even if they have been sober for the required length of time to become eligible, that smokers and former smokers shouldn't be eligible for lung transplants even if they have been smoke free for a decade, prisoners in general shouldn't be eligible, people who have lost or damaged an organ due to their own negligence, such as drunk driving, sky diving, etc...... shouldn't get to be on the waiting list for an organ either, according to popular opinion. Most think elderly people shouldn't get a chance at being an organ recipient either solely due to their age. The apparent majority opinion involving this case is that if the potential recipient has a terminal illness that the transplant won't cure then that should revoke their rights to receive an organ too.


SO, Who Gets Priority on the "list"?
That of course only leaves otherwise healthy young people who, through no known fault of their own, need an organ transplant that most people believe should get a chance to be placed on the waiting list, which in turn gives potential recipients under the age of 18 a distinct advantage, much like affirmative action did for minorities, only we are talking about life and death here. No one seems to care if the two year old who needs a new heart doesn't have a functioning brain or has many other birth defects that will likely seriously shorten their life span. It doesn't seem to matter either if the otherwise healthy 65 y/o who gets the kidney might survive until her 90's IF there is a child who might gain another decade is in need. Quality of life after transplant doesn't enter into public opinion NOR do the majority seem to give a shit if someone is a fucking saint otherwise and kicked a bad habit two decades prior, like smoking or drinking, that has allegedly contributed to their need for an organ. Just being old seems to be reason enough to refuse them a second chance to live a decade longer in comparison to someone like this girl in the news who, in all likelihood, won't live to see 40 under the best of circumstances due to her disease.


WHY Aren't We Already Creating Organs with Stem Cells?
As anyone can see I am completely disgusted with this whole thing and don't really believe it can be satisfactorily resolved under the current conditions. I also believe it's probable that in two decades or so this circus of fighting over organs will seem barbaric once we perfect stem cell creations of matching organs for anyone who ever needs one. Like we tend to behave in a superior fashion at how so many people unnecessarily died in the past from illnesses so easily cured and/or prevented now with a few antibiotic pills, vaccines, and/or medications, the same will be said about us for turning our noses up at a cure for diseased organs for decades, just because the majority foolishly found the answer morally and/or religiously repugnant. Religious groups held up invaluable stem cell research that's only been reinstated for a little over 3 years. Had the research been allowed to continue without this LUDICROUS Christian fundamentalist interruption, this story would be non existent. Ironically, these same fucking people are the ones whining about, "SAVE THE CHYYLD!". God, how I loathe religious fundamentalists with a purple passion.


What a bunch of idiots our few generations lasting only a hundred years or less will go down in history as being, and rightfully so.:drool

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If YOU are the "exception" to what I am saying, then why does my commentary bother you so much?
I don't hate your kids, I HATE YOU!

Judges, who think they own the world, should not be allowed to make rulings on medical issues that they are not qualified for. As mentioned above, the doctors (who ARE the experts in this) may have felt pressured into the second transplant because the unqualified god (Judge) ruled that they must do something lest legal repercussions happen. The judge was moved by filthy breeder moo bitch and her asshole duh and as a result, the entire transplant community is thrown into a tailspin. None of this should have happened. These pigs only made a bad situation worse for everybody, especially the kyd.

Breeders and breeder pleasers are the worst kind of scum! I pulled my donor card years ago because of reasons I mentioned earlier in this thread but this whole mess still disgusts me to the point where this alone would've made me toss my donor card had I still had one. Breeders may (try to) make the rules, but I still have the authority to decide what gets done with MY organs!

jbs

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kk
Religious groups held up invaluable stem cell research that's only been reinstated for a little over 3 years. Had the research been allowed to continue without this LUDICROUS Christian fundamentalist interruption, this story would be non existent. Ironically, these same fucking people are the ones whining about, "SAVE THE CHYYLD!". God, how I loathe religious fundamentalists with a purple passion.

You are so right about religious nutjobs. I'm sick of them and Breeders fucking up medicine.

Back when the stem cell controversy was raging, who stepped into the fray but NANCY REGAN. She was FOR stem cell research. I guess watching Ronnie deteriorate from a strapping, healthy man to a brainless Alzheimer's patient over a 15 year period before he mercifully died changed their religious views.

I suppose it was good that she stepped up, but religious nutjobs are still annoying. They have no compassion for anyone else unless they experience something firsthand. That's why I wish bad things on all of them, because they are too stupid to imagine how they would act if they were in hard circumstances such as being poor, not having access to medical care, facing an unplanned pregnancy, etc.

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bell_flower

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kk
Religious groups held up invaluable stem cell research that's only been reinstated for a little over 3 years. Had the research been allowed to continue without this LUDICROUS Christian fundamentalist interruption, this story would be non existent. Ironically, these same fucking people are the ones whining about, "SAVE THE CHYYLD!". God, how I loathe religious fundamentalists with a purple passion.

You are so right about religious nutjobs. I'm sick of them and Breeders fucking up medicine.

Back when the stem cell controversy was raging, who stepped into the fray but NANCY REGAN. She was FOR stem cell research. I guess watching Ronnie deteriorate from a strapping, healthy man to a brainless Alzheimer's patient over a 15 year period before he mercifully died changed their religious views.

I suppose it was good that she stepped up, but religious nutjobs are still annoying. They have no compassion for anyone else unless they experience something firsthand. That's why I wish bad things on all of them, because they are too stupid to imagine how they would act if they were in hard circumstances such as being poor, not having access to medical care, facing an unplanned pregnancy, etc.

We are working on it:

http://www.nature.com/news/tissue-engineering-how-to-build-a-heart-1.13327

The child however... Well :\ I am sorry for her, truly. But... She is unlikely to make it.

_______________________

“I was talking about children that have not been properly house-trained. Left to their own impulses and indulged by doting or careless parents almost all children are yahoos. Loud, selfish, cruel, unaffectionate, jealous, perpetually striving for attention, empty-headed, for ever prating or if words fail them simply bawling, their voices grown huge from daily practice: the very worst company in the world. But what I dislike even more than the natural child is the affected child, the hulking oaf of seven or eight that skips heavily about with her hands dangling in front of her -- a little squirrel or bunny-rabbit -- and prattling away in a baby's voice.”


― Patrick O'Brian, The Truelove


lib'-er-ty: the freedom given to you to make the wrong decision, based on the reasoned belief that you will normally make the right one.

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bell_flower

Quote
kk
Religious groups held up invaluable stem cell research that's only been reinstated for a little over 3 years. Had the research been allowed to continue without this LUDICROUS Christian fundamentalist interruption, this story would be non existent. Ironically, these same fucking people are the ones whining about, "SAVE THE CHYYLD!". God, how I loathe religious fundamentalists with a purple passion.

You are so right about religious nutjobs. I'm sick of them and Breeders fucking up medicine.

Back when the stem cell controversy was raging, who stepped into the fray but NANCY REGAN. She was FOR stem cell research. I guess watching Ronnie deteriorate from a strapping, healthy man to a brainless Alzheimer's patient over a 15 year period before he mercifully died changed their religious views.

I suppose it was good that she stepped up, but religious nutjobs are still annoying. They have no compassion for anyone else unless they experience something firsthand. That's why I wish bad things on all of them, because they are too stupid to imagine how they would act if they were in hard circumstances such as being poor, not having access to medical care, facing an unplanned pregnancy, etc.

I WISH staunch pro-lifers, other religious nuts "against" stem cell research or any other scientific endeavor they deem unGodly, would be faced with giving birth to a baby they didn't want for whatever reason OR be forced to make their 12 y/o rape victim daughter carry a baby to term, be forced to give birth to and care for a terminally ill child with no real brain function until it dies, become paralyzed from the neck down and kept alive on a mechanical vent, and/or experience being afflicted with ALS(Lou Gehrig's disease)Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, or some other degenerative and incurable disease which leaves them marinating in a pile of their own excrement and unable to do anything about it, OR, have to be the caregiver for someone who is suffering from something like that for the long term haul. They all like to claim that wouldn't change their viewpoint if personally affected, but I STRONGLY beg to differ.:headbrick

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If YOU are the "exception" to what I am saying, then why does my commentary bother you so much?
I don't hate your kids, I HATE YOU!

Well, here we were talking about whether Docs would harvest organs from the not-so-dead, and I came across this story today.

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DOCTORS at a New York hospital were about to remove the organs of a woman they thought was dead. Then she opened her eyes.

Colleeen Burns, 41, of Syracuse, New York, was admitted to St Joseph's Hospital Health Centre in October 2009 after a drug overdose.

Doctors concluded that she was brain dead, when in fact she was in a coma, and were preparing to harvest her organs for donation when she woke up on the operating table.

The hospital was fined $US6000 ($6600) after the state Health Department found that doctors ignored signs that Burns was still alive.

The day before her organs were to be removed, Burns responded to a reflex test. Her toes curled down when a nurse scraped the bottom of her foot with her finger. Also, her nostrils flared on her way to the operating room, indicating that she was breathing independently. Her lips and tongue were also moving.

Dr David Mayer, a general vascular surgeon and associate professor of clinical surgery an New York Medical College, told the Post-Standard that the decision of doctors to apply a sedative before removing the organs was strange.

"It would sedate her to the point that she could be non-reactive," Dr Mayer said. "If you have to sedate them or give them pain medication, they're not brain dead and you shouldn't be harvesting their organs."

How scary is that? This woman was responsive to reflex testing, the Docs ignored other signs, and she effectively woke up ON THE TABLE as they were preparing to remove her organs.

Perhaps she was considered disposable because she ended up in the hospital due to a drug overdose?

Though the woman didn't end up being a human sacrifice for her body parts, she committed suicided 16 months later. Who knows if it was related to the incident? To their credit, the family did not jump on the lawsuit train, although in this case, I think they should have.

The hospital never reported what happened, and when it was found out, they were fined a "whopping" $6,000.

http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/health-fitness/dead-patient-colleen-burns-wakes-amid-organ-donation-at-st-josephs-hospital-in-new-york/story-fneuz9ev-1226676841192

Here's another article about involuntary organ donor. http://www.medicaldaily.com/articles/17225/20130709/ny-hospital-fined-colleen-burns-organ-removal-mistaken-dead.htm

It details mistakes the staff made, or just flat out never did. Why would they decide not to treat an O.D.? That's their job. WAS this in interest of knowing that they had transplant recipients that they could harvest this woman for?


Oh, and I'm still outraged that the hospital was fined 6k. That's probably less than the cost of the near-victim's stay in the hospital. So, what's the message there? "Well if you try to kill someone for their body parts, we'll hit you with a tiny little fine!" Quite the deterrent there eh?

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cfchevygirl
Well, here we were talking about whether Docs would harvest organs from the not-so-dead, and I came across this story today.

Quote

DOCTORS at a New York hospital were about to remove the organs of a woman they thought was dead. Then she opened her eyes.

Colleeen Burns, 41, of Syracuse, New York, was admitted to St Joseph's Hospital Health Centre in October 2009 after a drug overdose.

Doctors concluded that she was brain dead, when in fact she was in a coma, and were preparing to harvest her organs for donation when she woke up on the operating table.

The hospital was fined $US6000 ($6600) after the state Health Department found that doctors ignored signs that Burns was still alive.

The day before her organs were to be removed, Burns responded to a reflex test. Her toes curled down when a nurse scraped the bottom of her foot with her finger. Also, her nostrils flared on her way to the operating room, indicating that she was breathing independently. Her lips and tongue were also moving.

Dr David Mayer, a general vascular surgeon and associate professor of clinical surgery an New York Medical College, told the Post-Standard that the decision of doctors to apply a sedative before removing the organs was strange.

"It would sedate her to the point that she could be non-reactive," Dr Mayer said. "If you have to sedate them or give them pain medication, they're not brain dead and you shouldn't be harvesting their organs."

How scary is that? This woman was responsive to reflex testing, the Docs ignored other signs, and she effectively woke up ON THE TABLE as they were preparing to remove her organs.

Perhaps she was considered disposable because she ended up in the hospital due to a drug overdose?

Though the woman didn't end up being a human sacrifice for her body parts, she committed suicided 16 months later. Who knows if it was related to the incident? To their credit, the family did not jump on the lawsuit train, although in this case, I think they should have.

The hospital never reported what happened, and when it was found out, they were fined a "whopping" $6,000.

http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/health-fitness/dead-patient-colleen-burns-wakes-amid-organ-donation-at-st-josephs-hospital-in-new-york/story-fneuz9ev-1226676841192

I saw this late at work today and wondered if anyone here would say anything. I think there may be something to the speculation that she was considered worthless because she was an organ donor and there for a drug overdose. I know exactly where this hospital is, and I know Syracuse as a city more well than I care to. If you are not a university student there, the reality is life is bleak, as I learned through first-hand experience. Syracuse, aside from SU, was really hit hard by the recession, not that it hadn't long suffered from rampant drug abuse, alcoholism, and extreme poverty before. Since I would hedge a bet that Colleen Burns, a 41 year old woman in the hospital for a drug overdose, was a representative of the massive social issues that plague Syracuse as a city, I would not be shocked at all if the doctors considered her disposable. Also note that St. Josephs is located in a bleak and rather noticably impoverished part of Syracuse, even though Syracuse NY as a city really does blend together. That said, this is not the hospital that the university students usually end up for alcohol poisoning/cocaine or prescription drug od/slipping on ice and injuring something; they are usually at Crouse or SUNY Upstate. I would hedge a bet that since St. Joseph's sees a lot of "problem" members of the local community...the extreme poor, the drug overdoses, the stabbing/shooting incidents (I've dealt with an incident professionally beginning with a stabbing and ending at St Josephs), I am not shocked by that assumption.

But this all illustrates how real and scary this fear really is. Hospitals are terrifying places.

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I think there may be something to the speculation that she was considered worthless because she was an organ donor and there for a drug overdose.

How are doctors deciding who is worthless and who deserves to be saved??? I also think this happens FAR more than we hear about. If I ever had the misfortune of being with a friend or family member when they died in a hospital I would enjoy telling those ghouls who deal with organ donation those organs are going to the grave with their owner.

The whole "taking the organs before s/he was dead" are the modern equivalent of "being buried alive".

While it may indeed happen, it is so vanishing improbable that it is not really worthy bothering about. You could as well be hit by lightening.

_______________________

“I was talking about children that have not been properly house-trained. Left to their own impulses and indulged by doting or careless parents almost all children are yahoos. Loud, selfish, cruel, unaffectionate, jealous, perpetually striving for attention, empty-headed, for ever prating or if words fail them simply bawling, their voices grown huge from daily practice: the very worst company in the world. But what I dislike even more than the natural child is the affected child, the hulking oaf of seven or eight that skips heavily about with her hands dangling in front of her -- a little squirrel or bunny-rabbit -- and prattling away in a baby's voice.”


― Patrick O'Brian, The Truelove


lib'-er-ty: the freedom given to you to make the wrong decision, based on the reasoned belief that you will normally make the right one.

Well, I realize that organ snatchers are not running rampant here --- yet. But, it just goes to show that it apparently does happen. The medical staff knew this woman was responsive in reflex, was breathing on her own, and they actually ignored tests, then went so far as to sedate her to take her organs. They knew she was not brain dead, as a Doctor in one of the articles said. They didn't seem to care, and instead actively worked to put her under anesthesia so that she couldn't fight or object.

The hospital didn't even report that this happened, and when it was found out, they were hit with a paltry fine.

It may not be widespread, right now. But, even so, it just goes to show that it happens; or people try to make it happen. Had the woman not woken up, they would've stolen her organs and no one would've ever known. They lied to her family, said she was brain-dead, and they would've remained in the dark. If it happened once, how many times more has it happened? And how many times has it been gotten away with? Even one time is too many, imo. And it just goes to show that there's not any real way to know if this has happened, unless they get caught.

I'm not currently an organ donor. But, if I was, after reading about something like this, I would rethink that idea. Why take the chance that someone tries to kill you off so that they can take your parts?

I would like to have heard who the medical staff were and what their justification was for faking this woman being brain-dead. I would also like to know who the potential recipients were. Were they chyldren? Was it someone rich and/or "important"? There had to be some kind of motivation for them to hide the fact that this woman was not a candidate for having her organs harvested.

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cfchevygirl
Well, I realize that organ snatchers are not running rampant here --- yet. But, it just goes to show that it apparently does happen. The medical staff knew this woman was responsive in reflex, was breathing on her own, and they actually ignored tests, then went so far as to sedate her to take her organs. They knew she was not brain dead, as a Doctor in one of the articles said. They didn't seem to care, and instead actively worked to put her under anesthesia so that she couldn't fight or object.

The hospital didn't even report that this happened, and when it was found out, they were hit with a paltry fine.

It may not be widespread, right now. But, even so, it just goes to show that it happens; or people try to make it happen. Had the woman not woken up, they would've stolen her organs and no one would've ever known. They lied to her family, said she was brain-dead, and they would've remained in the dark. If it happened once, how many times more has it happened? And how many times has it been gotten away with? Even one time is too many, imo. And it just goes to show that there's not any real way to know if this has happened, unless they get caught.

I'm not currently an organ donor. But, if I was, after reading about something like this, I would rethink that idea. Why take the chance that someone tries to kill you off so that they can take your parts?

I would like to have heard who the medical staff were and what their justification was for faking this woman being brain-dead. I would also like to know who the potential recipients were. Were they chyldren? Was it someone rich and/or "important"? There had to be some kind of motivation for them to hide the fact that this woman was not a candidate for having her organs harvested.

I completely agree with this entire post.wink


My Brief "Locked In" Experience a Decade Ago
I am also a firm believer in the truth to the old saying, "Where there's smoke, there's fire". I'd venture a guess that for every one story we hear about there's a dozen more that go unnoticed and/or unreported, at least. While I will agree this is as likely to happen to us as winning the lottery or getting struck by lightening, the fact it does happen on occasion, although not frequently, is frightening to me. Perhaps on a personal level I am more afraid than I normally would be because I experienced a brief(probably a week or less)and mild case of what is known as "Locked in Syndrome" when I began slowly coming out of a coma after a brain aneurysm. Although it was unlike the serious and irreversible cases of it in that I could at least move my toes and obviously it wasn't permanent, I was completely aware of everything going on around me including hearing and comprehending what was being said, but I could not make any "meaningful" communicative responses to let anyone know I was still "in there".:scr


The "Code Word" Saved my Sanity and Who Knows What Else!
What "saved" me, at least my sanity, was a few months prior to that my mother and I had one of those "what if" conversations that included how we would "make a sign" if we were thought to be brain dead and couldn't communicate normally. We decided on a secret "sign" and it was the word OR symbol, "star". We decided "star" was a good safe-code word because the shape could be distinctively made with our eyes, scrawled out easily with our fingers, or mouthed easily and recognized because it was monosyllabic. SO, after my family was told I had, "minimal brain activity' my mother started screaming into my face hysterically after they left saying, "Kim, SAY STAR!!!", over and over and over, and since I couldn't move my mouth and she couldn't fucking see my toes move in the shape of a star because they were covered with a sheet, I started making star shapes with my one good eye(the other had been blinded, the muscles weakened, and was veering off aimlessly into left space) until she realized what I was trying to do and then it just became, "Blink once for yes and twice for no". I was relieved and ecstatic when she acknowledged I was still, "in there". After that week I just "woke up" entirely and haven't stopped running my mouth since in person AND on paper or online.


Create Your Own Code Word-Now(while you have the chance!)
This came in handy 6 years later when SHE became unable to communicate after a near diabetic coma scare and the EMT's kept asking her questions after stabilizing her and she just sat there mute,slumped over, motionless, and with a blank stare looking like a fucking tard!!! I yelled at her, "For God's sake Mother, WHAT IS OUR CODE WORD!!!?", and although she was highly annoyed, she finally bellowed out, "STAR, okay???!" and I knew she'd be alright, but it was looking like she might not still be "in there" due to her blank stare and the way she was acting. I'd HIGHLY recommend that everyone create a code word with the people you care about because it absolutely does help in certain situations to ascertain if you-they are still "there". Even people "locked in" and in certain coma-like states can communicate one word that's been drilled into their heads and woven into their long term memories in many cases.

I might add that AFTER I started communicating with blinks after having been jostled back into physical reality after having made the "star" symbol with my eye, the medical staff started treating me MUCH BETTER, especially when no one was around. I guess it's easier to treat someone like they are a human being when you believe they are still "in there" as opposed to being mindless lumps of flesh, which is how most of them treated me when they thought I was a brain dead tard.

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If YOU are the "exception" to what I am saying, then why does my commentary bother you so much?
I don't hate your kids, I HATE YOU!

It's a good idea to protect yourself from this kind of thing as best you can, but I fear that one of these days, sooner than we think, these bastards will no longer need your consent in the form of a "Donor Card". They will just be able to help themselves.

jbs