Donation and Compensation

Organ dontation, to opt in or to opt out, that is the question.

I am on the regiser as an organ donor, I'm also a blood donor between piercings, tattoos and foreign travel. Clearly I am a pro-dontation so I don't doubt this affects my opinion on the subject.

Personally I would be happy to see the introduction of an 'opt out' system of presumed consent. We need to increase the number of tissue and organ donors in the UK as we currently cannot meet the demand. I think that there are many people who would be happy to donate but just never get around to making that decision and registering. Where as, if an opt out system were in place, I expect those who do not wish to do not would feel quite strongly about this and be motivated to opt-out. I also feel that organ donation should be in the hands of the individual, not the relatives.

However there are problems with presumed consent. Is it informed consent, as is required for consent for other medical procedures, and how can we ensure it is informed consent? Making the material available for the individual to read does not necessarily mean they will (though personally I feel that's their choice).

How easy will it be to opt out and will that wish be respected. As with all things there is the risk of abuse. What if a person chooses to op out in the last moments of their life, can this be verbal withdrawal of consent, must it be written? What about children? Would the responsibilty lie with thier parents, and at what point would they be able to make their own decision?

Those are jsut a few of the issues that spring to mind and clearly it's an ethical minefield. (Life would be a lot easier without ethics I often think!) However I think it's worth considering the issue fully. On first thought I'm compeltely in support of the system. When I think further on it I see the difficulties that may arise. However ultimately I am in favour of it.

Suing hospitals for compensation is my next port of call. It's the recent story with Lesley Ash being awarded £5million that has prompted this and I've been considering for a while what I wanted to say about it.

*deletes all the heartless things she wrote*

Undoubteldy Lesley has suffered and I don't deny that there was negligence on the part of the hospital however it is an absolutely atrocious anount of money for one person to be awarded. Ultimately it feels rather like revenge on her part. But more importantly the part that bothers me is people taking much-needed money away from a FREE healthcare system. At the end of the day money doesn't bring back the dead, won't make you walk again but it will make a difference to patient care.

I'm not saying the hospital shouldn't be held accountable in some way, and change should be implemented, but compensation is only good for one thing, satisfying the greed of the individual. (I know that in some circumstances a person may be unable to work as a result of negligence, they may therefore be unable to keep up with rent etc, but that is a very different situation to suing for £5million, more money than you could ever need, even then it feels wrong to be taking money away from the service.)

People make mistakes. Nurses make mistakes. Doctors make mistakes. Surgeons make mistakes. This is human error and generally speaking not malicious, we are doing our best in an over-worked, under-staffed, and under-appreciated system. The NHS is a FREE healthcare service, and whilst we should be striving to maintian high standards of care, people should spend more time being grateful for what we've got and less time working out how much money they can get out of it.

Please feel free to comment on this. I know I'm being rather opinionated, possibly narrowminded and almost certainly heartless, but nursing and the NHS is something I feel passionately about.