Gordon Brown wants us to have to "Opt Out" of Organ Donation. If you "opted out" then needed a transplant............

[Milliways]

do you think the system could move you down the priority list??

Would you want your loved ones precious organs to go to someone who would not have been willing to donate theirs??

They do it in Spain and apparently it works very well.

I can understand why families are reluctant to agree to donate organs from their loved ones. The body still has to be alive doesn't it? So it would need to be kept artifically alive? So it would seem a bit like cutting open a living body. Which if it was my husband or child, I'm not sure I could cope with it.

I may be talking crap here, but this could be where education about the process is a good idea.

i am all for it.

I have a donor card and as hard as i wuold find it, if anything were to happen to my children i would want their organs to be used if possible.

but i know that at the point of my death, my mother would refuse..even though she knows that it would be my wish.

If anyone is prompted by this discussion, you can register yourself as a donor online.

www.uktransplant.org.uk/ukt/how_to_become_a_donor/registration/consent.jsp

I did it a while ago, and told my 7 yearold I had done it. He immediately asked if children can do that, and can he be on it. So now he is.

sorry..not read the whole thread....but could anyone tell me if those already registred to donate organs need to do anything once opt out comes into action...or will those people just stay on the registre to donate....iykwim

I personaly want a new system, my 33 yr old BIL died waiting for a heart, everyone in my family are on the donor list and quite frankly when I'm dead they can take whatever is any use to them but like poster above I do intend living for ever so might be nowt worth having

Thanks for this thread have just registered myself - having been meaning to for ages .

Have re-registered on line.

No idea where those key rings come from though. I could do with one of them. The cards get lost & battered, but I always have my keys with me.

My sister (who had two liver transplants), knew somebody who had had a liver transplant and was waiting on a kidney and she, and her family, were not donors because they thought it was "yucky". Just for the record, my sister always carried a donor card, which she thought made it easier for her pyschologically whent she needed an organ.

choccyp1g thanks for the link to the site - I was moaning to DH yesterday that you couldn't do this on line - shows how much I know! I've updated all my details.

jee...that is kinda a odd attitude...I mean, surely receiving an organ is then also yucky......

Sorry to hear that your sister has needed 2 liver transplantations, she and all of you must have been through very difficult and traumatic times...and I can completely understand why she found it helpful to to be an the orgn donor registre....it makes complete sense, to me anyway...

I find to hard to accept how someone can be unwilling to be a donor but happy to take one if they are ill.

I think there should be an opt out system. If you feel so strongly that you don't want to donate then make the effort to take your name off the list.

It also annoys me that you can be on the donor list but your family can still say no. What is the point of that?

oh and duh...ignore my earlier stupid question...wasn't thinking straight, I think....

All I know is that we need to find a way to raise organ donation in this country and nobody yet has come up with a convincing argument about why this wouldn't be a good idea. You feel strongly against it, you opt out. I make sure I do it with marketing material and that is a lot less important to me than this

I do actually feel very strongly about this. My best friend's husband died a year ago on Saturday waiting for a liver. He was the number 1 priority in the country at the time but there wasn't a liver available. I often wonder whether he would have survived if this system had been in place.

I'd opt out so any doctors who wanted my bits would have to ask my family, rather than just steam ahead. They can have anything that is useful IF they respect my family's grief and IF it doesn't affect their decisions about my care - when to judge that my brainstem is dead or when the ventilator is turned off.

Don't think that is at all incompatible with being jolly grateful for a transplant should I ever need one (God forbid).

If Liam Donaldson (chief medical officer) was seriously about increasing the number of transplants carried out, he'd make sure trusts employed more transplant co-ordinators and had more intensive care beds. Guess it's easier to berate the public.

But if you opt out, I don't think they would ask your family because you'd opted out. In Spain, even though there is presumed content, families are still asked for their agreement. They just know that you hadn't opted out so would presume you didn't have strong feelings against it.

I agree that the government also have to do more but it is a fact that there is still a high proportion of people in this country who would be happy to donate who are not on the register.

According to the BBC, there are plans in place to increase the number of transplant co-ordinators (and additional 63 by 2009).

edam...your sentiments I can completely understand....it was just that earlier posted one, that someone would not donate organs because they thought it was yucky but happily received an organ, iykwim...that doesn't make sense, surely...I mena if it's yucki it's yucki....and if anything....wouldn't it be actually yuckier to receive an organ ratehr than donate one...iykwim....not that I personally think it's yucki...

just thought about this...and if anything, personlly I possibly would feel more apprehensive about receiving someones organ....however, I think it I was in the position to need one, I would probably still want to at least try to survive by having an organ...
does that make sense at all?