"Emergency transplant"
In New York, it is planned to create an ambulance service to preserve fresh corpses. This will allow preserving the organs of the deceased for the needs of transplantology, which is experiencing a constant shortage of transplant material, MSNBC reports.
Currently, only organs of people who died in hospitals are used for transplantation, since special equipment and trained personnel are needed to preserve organs. Even in these conditions, the removal of organs is advisable only in the first hours after death.
It is planned that the new ambulance will arrive immediately after the doctors or paramedics have pronounced death. The team that arrived will immediately begin administering drugs and indirect heart massage to keep the organs of the deceased suitable for transplantation. The removal of organs will take place only in hospital conditions and only after obtaining the consent of the relatives of the deceased.
Of course, the decision to create such a service implies solving a number of ethical and psychological issues. Among them are the reaction of relatives to the arrival of an ambulance for organs immediately after the death of a loved one, their suspicions of insufficient efforts by paramedics to save lives, religious aspects, lack of information about the desire or unwillingness of the deceased to become an organ donor.
According to the ethics project consultant Nancy Doubler, director of the bioethics department at Montefiore Medical Center, there should be an "absolute barrier" between the medical team and the new service. In addition, the staff of the ambulance for corpses will include a consultant, whose duty will be to obtain the consent of relatives before starting manipulations.