More than a handful of Canadians die every year while waiting for organs (1). More organ donors would inevitably decrease this death rate; so, what’s the problem? The problem seems to be that we are uncomfortable with the subject as a whole. While many of us are more than happy to sign up for organ donation, a questionable portion of us do not, either because we do not make the time for it, or for the more popular reason – it’s frightening to think about one’s own demise. Although there is no problem with the latter, the main issue here is that we do not feel motivated to register.
If we could flip the system, like over 20 countries in Europe have done, Canadians could automatically be considered organ donors unless they go out of their way to take their names off of this donor list (1). By doing it this way, the government would still have the consent of Canadians, who do not wish to donate their organs, and would have many more organ donors versus that of what we currently possess.
This system is called a “presumed consent model,” and is said to hold organ donation rates that surpass those of the Canadian system’s (1). The Canadian Liver Foundation suggests that there will be no improvement in our current organ donation rates if we do not adopt a presumed consent model (1).
It is a secure plan, really. If a few more lives can be spared each year by simply flipping the system, I do not see how this is even debatable. If people feel that their rights are being taken away from them (which is false), then they can have their names taken off the list. There really is no difference with the system, other than the government’s presumption being that one is perfectly fine with having their organs donated when they are deceased.
References
(1) http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/Health/20120525/presumed-consent-organ-donation-120525/
No comments:
Post a Comment