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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To really not understand why people do not join the organ donation register?

276 replies

3littlefrogs · 11/04/2013 22:18

I have been registered since I passed my driving test nearly 40 years ago. If I am dead I won't need my organs. They could save someone else's child, wife, husband, sister, brother.

OP posts:
SauvignonBlanche · 12/04/2013 16:13

Mini, my DH's life has been extended by 30 years, so far, should they have let him die at 21? He's paid tax all those extra years.
MsBella, you can't just spout spurious nonsense and then insist that it's FACT!

stuffthenonsense · 12/04/2013 16:13

I'm not on the register but that doesn't prohibit being asked in the event.
My reticence is purely emotional and support. Having sat with my father as he was dying, (from cancer and at home so not eligible before I get flamed) I know that his very last moments were eased by the fact that he could (just about) look me in the eye, there was an urgency, a need for someone to love him in those moments and we sat together like that, hand in hand until he had drawn his very last breath (well even after to be honest). I could not bear, under any circumstances, kissing my loved one goodbye and sending them to a theatre to draw their last breath, even if that was assisted, without a loved one there with them. Now if THAT issue could be dealt with then the last of my concerns would be dealt with

SauvignonBlanche · 12/04/2013 16:15

The doctors fighting to save your life are quite separate to the Transplant team, there is no conflict of interest.

Smellslikecatspee · 12/04/2013 16:17

" there have been many cases where someone who got a donated organ took on personality traits of the donor"

And in the main the changes in the person could also be attributed to the immunosuppression drugs they also need to take, from change in hair textures and lightening or darkening, changes in taste to loss of fingerprints(seriously).

So how much is the Donor families parents wanting to see something of their lost one in the recipient?

How much is the drugs?

And oh course if you have been on a waiting list that has to change you as a person and then been given such a gift from people who are in grieving and loss.

That has to affect most people deeply.

I know a few people who have had organ transplants, 2 became much more extrovert, travelled, felt very strongly that that had to make the most of what they had been given.

One became much more introverted, felt very much that they had been given this precious gift and had to protect it at all costs. No foreign holidays (just in case they got delayed and ran out of meds)actually lots of just in cases, but hey they were happy.

Ps: Foreign accent syndrome, very rare, is due to brain damage, and recent research has shown that the person isn?t actually talking in a foreign accent more that their pattern of speech has changed and it is how the listener interprets it . This is why Linda Walker a lady from Newcastle(post stroke) is described as having a Jamaican, French Canadian, Italian, and a Slovakian accent dependent on who is doing the listening . . .

There has been no verified case where a patient's foreign language skills have improved after a brain injury or suddenly developed the ability to speak a new language.

Personally, once I get to a point where I cant express my own needs/wants, be it because of injury or disease thay can take what they want.

LadyBeagleEyes · 12/04/2013 16:17

Snorting with laughter at MsBellas's post.
And yes, Mini, let's have a cut off age for the elderly, how about 80 and then euthanise them? Hmm

Titsalinabumsquash · 12/04/2013 16:17

Ok firstly it is NOT harvesting, it's donating organs/tissue that is no longer needed by someone because they are DEAD.

Personally I see it as nothing but hypocrisy at its worst. If your loved one was dying and the only thing that would save them is blood or an organ then you would take it surely?! Yet find it perfectly ok not to donate to someone else in the same position even though you or a loved one is dead.

Regardless of what happens to the soul or spirt, death of the mind and body is just that. Those organs that are no use to you nn ever again will be could change and save many people's lives.

Although bare in min this is my opinions a parent of a son who is very likely to one day rely on the kindness of someone to donate an organ in death so he can live.

We donated anything we could of my Mums, sadly it was only her corneas, tendons and some skin that was suitable but it. Was at least something.

MsBella · 12/04/2013 16:17

I have researched it for a long time so no its not nonsense...

Pickles101 · 12/04/2013 16:20

Oh ok then Hmm

Lemonylemon · 12/04/2013 16:20

Stuff Not going to flame you at all. The nurse from the organ donation team was really kind to me. I didn't realise that my fiance was on the register, so came as a bit of a surprise (not a shock, because he was that kind of man). The nurse was lovely. She explained the tests that they would carry out at the end to determine brain stem death and then what happens when the organs are taken. I stayed with my fiance until some hours after his death.

Pickles101 · 12/04/2013 16:20

Yy to Smells and Tits and all those likeminded before them Smile

SauvignonBlanche · 12/04/2013 16:21

No, MsBella it's bollocks, I was being polite!

MsBella · 12/04/2013 16:24

If you do a bit of research like I did and you'll see where I'm coming from

LyingWitchInTheWardrobe2726 · 12/04/2013 16:28

Lemony... really good to read your posts. I'm glad your awful experience was dealt with kindly and with understanding.

Pickles101 · 12/04/2013 16:29

Bella, maybe try reading a referenced article by a professional and not The Sun.

Katiepoes · 12/04/2013 16:29

MsBella you are coming from the Land of Woo.

How would an organ carry personality traits? Really explain to me, I love a good possession tale.

LyingWitchInTheWardrobe2726 · 12/04/2013 16:31

This thread is going to be derailed with crap it seems. It's a shame because organ donation is such an important topic. :(

MsBella · 12/04/2013 16:33

I can assure you I don't read the sun and even if I did, do you really think a newspaper would tell this to the public!? Nope of course not
And katie it is believed that every one of our cells are concious

Its good to find out different sides to things like this

Evilberry · 12/04/2013 16:33

Ms Bella as you've done research, please could you post some links or state sources?

MsBella · 12/04/2013 16:35

Trust me my research can't just be linked to on a website...

I suggest that anyone is interested finds out a few different sides to all this it really is good to get thinking about things differently, opens your mind a bit more which is always a great thing!

Evilberry · 12/04/2013 16:36

For years I believed that as a Type 1 diabetic I couldn't register, but this thread has made me check and I can donate. Registered today

MiniTheMinx · 12/04/2013 16:36

I don't believe that elderly people shouldn't have care or pensions, I don't think things can go on as they are though. It isn't wrong to extend someones life, it isn't wrong that medical science can extend the age to which most of us will live. What is wrong is the socio/economic system that we have. Elderly people are clogging up hospital beds because there is no where for them to go. What is the point in medicine keeping people going if we can't afford either the time or the money to care for them.

I am also inclined to question why organs are being sold to overseas patients.

The NHS is being privatised in a piecemeal fashion, more and more services offered by private companies, all of which have the right to use the NHS branding, so that most people have no idea. Will you trust private hospitals not to sell your organs for profit, afterall they will only be offering you health care for profit. I wonder what will be more profitable, keeping people alive or selling organs to privately funded patients, who have private health insurance or better still can pay up front.

Pickles101 · 12/04/2013 16:37

Ms Bella as you've done research, please could you post some links or state sources?

Trust me my research can't just be linked to on a website...

or state sources?

Smellslikecatspee · 12/04/2013 16:40

Thank you Pickles101

SauvignonBlanche · 12/04/2013 16:59

MsBella please state your sources, be so good as to only include the peer reviewed studies not 'Take a Break' magazine.

musicmadness · 12/04/2013 17:00

I'm on the donor register, and my next of kin know my wishes. They can take whatever they want from me, I'm not going to need it and if it can do some good somewhere then all the better. I don't care where the organ is going, whether to a 75YO or an 18YO, here or abroad, a life is a life and they are going to get far more use out of it than me!

I think it is probably helpful to be on the register because if the situation arose and your family was grieving it would be a reminder of your wishes at a very difficult time.

I don't think the next of kin should be allowed to over rule the decision anyway, anyone on the donor register should be automatically eligible regardless of NOK wishes IMO. Likewise in opt out systems the NOK should not be able to over rule someone who has said they don't want their organs donated. I think NOK should only be consulted if a persons wishes were not made clear during their life time.

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