Posthumous donation: what's wrong with the presumption of consent?
Passions around transplantation
The deputies proposed to simplify the rules of transplantation of donor organs
Ada Emmanuilovna Gorbacheva, Nezavisimaya Gazeta, 04.12.2012
There are topics that need only be mentioned, as society immediately rushes at them like dogs at a bone. One of these topics is organ transplantation. The State Duma of the Russian Federation has developed a bill according to which the so-called presumption of consent is provided in Russia, that is, the use of the deceased's organs will be possible if he did not prohibit such use in writing during his lifetime, and a furious discussion instantly broke out. When this norm is introduced, patients will be gutted in hospitals in order to transplant their kidneys and hearts to oligarchs and bandits or sell them abroad. It will start right away.
It is pointless to argue about whether it will start or not, because the presumption of consent has existed in Russia for 20 years – according to a law adopted back in 1992. Then such horrors were not painted. It can be seen that over the past two decades the country has moved towards obscurantism. Doctors have finally turned into executioners and merchants in the eyes of society.
Strictly speaking, all that the State Duma is going to do is for a person who does not want his organs to be used posthumously to prohibit it in writing during his lifetime. If you don't want it, it's your will. Now, by the way, organ transplantation is prohibited if it is known that during the life of a person, either his closest relatives or a legal representative declared their disagreement with the removal of organs. Therefore, most transplants are marginal, as a hemodialysis specialist put it (a procedure while waiting for a kidney transplant) Valery Shilo. Marginal in the sense that organs for transplantation are taken mainly from dead homeless people and unknown personalities.
Professor Valery Savchenko, director of the Bone Marrow Transplantation Research Institute, called our society infantile and egocentric, a society in which few people think that the inevitable death of one person can give life to another.
In Western countries, people are increasingly signing acts of donation, bequeathing their organs for transplantation in case of death. Such a will was written by the famous fashion designer Trussardi, and when he crashed on the road, his organs were transplanted to five patients. So we can assume that in a sense Trussardi is not dead - he will live as long as his heart beats in someone, his kidneys and liver work.
In Spain, there are stickers on cathedrals: "Don't take your organs to heaven with you, you won't need them there. Leave them to those who need them on earth."
Academician Valery Shumakov said that he saw how a woman who lost her daughter agreed to have her organs transplanted to another child. She said: let my girl's heart continue to beat at least in another body, let another family not know the grief of the death of a child.
We have scandals breaking out every now and then. Everyone remembers the story in the 20th Moscow hospital, in which law enforcement officers broke into the intensive care unit and accused the doctors that they wanted to take organs from a still living person. Arkady Mamontov immediately made a film about killer doctors. Deaths are really followers: patients who could have been saved by transplantation died, and transplants almost almost stopped. This story also cost the life of Academician Shumakov. For four years there were trials, no crime was found against doctors. Has anyone apologized to them? The whole country has seen Mamontov's film. And that the film is false, how many people know?
It is not surprising that rumors are spreading about villains-doctors eviscerating patients. More recently, a woman who had a caesarean section said that her kidney was cut out at the same time during the operation, of course, for sale. The investigation showed that indeed, the woman has one kidney. Only no one kidnapped the second one. It's completely unrealistic. Apparently, the woman was born with one kidney. It happens. My friend, for example, who was undergoing research on another occasion, accidentally found out that he has one kidney.
Internet forums ask: where is the Russian Orthodox Church, why does it not protest against organ transplantation? Calm down, the ROC is aware of all the problems and not only has a positive attitude towards transplantation, but, as Hieromonk Father Anatoly Berestov (MD) said, blesses the transplantation. On this occasion, he and other church leaders have spoken many times. And yet here you are: an ungodly thing is organ transplantation from a corpse," says not a dark grandmother, but a completely enlightened journalist.
It is characteristic that while a person has everything in order with his health, he has only ethical views, as soon as an accident happens, and he himself needs an organ transplant, views radically change.
Yes, our country is corrupt, including medicine. Yes, health care is bad. If you get to the hospital, they may not cure you – for various reasons: the doctor is unqualified, there is no diagnostic equipment, there are no medications. But to deliberately bring to death in order to cut out organs – this cannot be, because it can never be. What a terrible fantasy. And the most terrible thing is that they believe in it. With such suspicions, you should go to the hospital – no killer doctors are needed: you will die from thoughts alone.
The State Duma is not going to fundamentally revise the law on transplantation, but to clarify, including ethical issues, of which there are many. So the hysteria that broke out, which also captured the Internet, would seem to be unjustified by nothing. Why, however, did they suddenly start discussing this right now? The question, of course, is interesting and suggestive. Untimely.
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru04.12.2012