~~Patients kept alive soley to harvest organs~~ ~~Patients kept alive soley to harvest organs ~~
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ApsarA
Posts : 661 Join date : 2012-01-26 Location : ~~WonDerLanD~~
Subject: ~~Patients kept alive soley to harvest organs~~ ~~Patients kept alive soley to harvest organs ~~ Mon Feb 13, 2012 11:22 am
Patients could be kept alive solely so they can become organ donors as part of an urgent medical and ethical revolution to ease Britain’s chronic shortage of organs, doctors’ leaders say today.
It is one of a raft of measures contained in controversial proposals from the British Medical Association intended to stop up to 1,000 people a year dying because of the country’s chronic shortage of organs. A new BMA report also suggests hearts could be taken from newborn babies for the first time and body parts could be used from high -risk donors. The BMA wants a debate about the use of an ethically contentious practice called “elective ventilation”, in which patients diagnosed as dead – such as those who have suff ered a massive stroke – are kept alive purely to enable organ retrieval. While such patients are often put on artificial ventilation for a short while to enable their relatives to say goodbye, the report says, “elective ventilation is diff erent in that it involves starting ventilation, once it is recognised that the patient is close to death, with the specifi c intention of facilitating organ donation” .
~~Patients kept alive soley to harvest organs~~ ~~Patients kept alive soley to harvest organs ~~