New York Tackles Organ Transplant Shortage With RORA
An estimated 22,000 potential organ donors die each year in the US without getting the chance to give their kidney, cornea, stem cells and other tissue to patients still in need.
Why?
Because the donor is declared dead outside of a hospital.
Most of today’s organ donations come from living donors or from hospitalized patients who are brain dead. In these cases, consent for organ harvesting is commonly provided in advance and the donated tissue is removed quickly.
But when a patient unexpectedly dies of a heart attack or some other fatal condition outside a medical setting, emergency crews eliminate the high-speed, siren run to reduce safety risks and costs. By the time the deceased’s body is transported and their relatives are contacted, the tissue can lose its viability leaving both the donor families and critically-ill patients frustrated.
Officials in New York City are trying to address this problem by launching the Rapid Organ Recovery Ambulance (RORA). The goal of the federally-funded program is to preserve organs that would otherwise become unusable because the family’s consent couldn’t be obtained quickly enough.
RORA is controversial because preserving the organs would mean performing some medical procedures (not the actual harvesting) immediately, before the family’s consent is obtained – a move that has some healthcare consumers and professionals concerned.
Bioethicists, medical groups, transplant organizations and others are still debating the ramifications of RORA, but for now New York City health officials are pressing on with plans to implement the program, which could be in operation as early as June 2008. As one physician involved with the project said,
“We’re moving slowly. There is immense potential, but the No. 1 topic is the ethics.”
Lewis Goldfrank, MD
Chairman of Emergency Medicine, Bellevue Hospital
According to the OrganDonor.gov web site, there are more than 99,000 people currently registered on the transplant waiting list.
Source: USA Today
Related Links: National Marrow Donor Program; Mayo Clinic; Chicago Sun-Times; National Cancer Institute
Technorati Tags: allogeneic transplants; end-of-life care; oncology
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