Surgeon Accused in Death of Patient to Get Organs
A doctor has been accused of hastening death of a patient to get the organs. If proved, this may be a criminal case against the doctor.
Doctor Dr. Hootan C. Roozrokh has been charged of using excessive drugs to hasten the death of one of his patients to harvest the organs faster. The patient was a disabled man with brain damage. The doctors wanted to harvest his liver and kidneys. The charges were brought against the doctor by the prosecutor, which may be the first such case.
The case may be a result of the misunderstanding of a specific organ harvesting technique called as “donation after cardiac death” or desperate effort of the doctor to get organs for study.
This news may frighten the donor away from organ donation. Already people do not want to donate and if such doubts arise every now and then, then there will be huge shortage of organ donors. People will keep away from any such organ donation issues.
As the medical science advanced, cardiac death harvesting was gone out of fashion in 1960s. In its place brain dead donations were promoted in a bigger way. But in recent years cardiac-death donations have been encouraged again.
See the number of donations in the first nine months of 2007
Cardiac-death donations 670
Brain-death donations 12,553
This data is shared by the United Network for Organ Sharing.
In case of brain-death donations though the donor is dead, the organs are keep viable by the machines. On the other hand, in case of cardiac-death donations, heath happens after the ventilation to the patient is stopped.
It will be a real shame if this case causes people to refuse to donate their organs when they die. We need all the organ donors we can get.
Over half of the 98,000 Americans on the national transplant waiting list will die before they get a transplant. Most of these deaths are needless. Americans bury or cremate about 20,000 transplantable organs every year. Over 6,000 of our neighbors suffer and die needlessly every year as a result.
There is a simple way to put a big dent in the organ shortage — give organs first to people who have agreed to donate their own organs when they die.
Giving organs first to organ donors will convince more people to register as organ donors. It will also make the organ allocation system fairer. People who aren’t willing to share the gift of life should go to the back of the waiting list as long as there is a shortage of organs.
Anyone who wants to donate their organs to others who have agreed to donate theirs can join LifeSharers. LifeSharers is a non-profit network of organ donors who agree to offer their organs first to other organ donors when they die. Membership is free at http://www.lifesharers.org or by calling 1-888-ORGAN88. There is no age limit, parents can enroll their minor children, and no one is excluded due to any pre-existing medical condition.