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Anesthesiologists have always concerned themselves with
saving
lives. For so long, they have dedicated their skills to improve the
techniques involved in basic and
advanced life support. Nowadays, they
seem to drift away from the role they
have always concerned themselves
with. Biased by their well-intentioned
desire to benefit an organ
recipient, anesthesiologists may do that
at the expense of the helpless
donor-(13). Instead of doing
their best to help the donor, they tend
to
handle him as already dead, depriving
him of his very limited chance (if
he has any) to survive. Once brainstem
death is diagnosed and the
patient is considered a potential organ
donor, attention shifts to the
condition of the individual organs.
For instance, fluids are restricted
for
patients with head injuries to minimize
cerebral swelling, however, once
the patient is declared brain-dead, high
volumes are administered to
"optimize" the function of (the vital
organs, especially (the kidneys. Also,
if the patient is not a potential donor,
the lines and tubes are removed
quickly. However, if he is an organ
donor, the equipment stays in place,
and should cardiac arrest occur,
resuscitation of the "body" must start
at
once(59). This is what one
might, call a slippery slope.
These ideas are shared by many
amethesiologists world wide along with
many others Dr. Norm Barber(45) expresses this opinion explicitly in his book “ The nasty side of organ
transplanting, the cannibalistic nature
of transplant medicine “ under the
heading : proffional opinion , he
states that :
The late Dr Phillip keep , former consultant
anaesthetist at the Norfolk and Norwich
hospital in the United Kingdom, risked
his career by publicly saying what the
anaesthetist profession had been
debating privately for decades,
“ Almost everyone will say they have
felt uneasy about it.
Nurses get really, really upset.
You stick the knife in
and the pulse and blood pressure
shoot up. If you don’t give
anything at all, the patient will
start moving and wriggling
around and it s’ impossible to
do the operation. The surgeon
always asked us to paralyse the
patient”
Dr Keep added,
“ I Don’t
carry a donor card at the moment because
I know what happens”
Theatre nurses also express doubt about the health status of
the donor. Dr David Hill, also an
anaesthetist, checked operating theatre
registers at Addenbrooke hospital in
the United Kingdom and discovered that
nurses recorded the time of death at
the end of organ removal as if the donor
had come in to the harvest room alive.
This contradicted the official time of
death when the patient was diagnosed “
brain dead “
Dr David Wainwright Evans, a cardiologist, formerly of
papworth hospital in cambridgeshire,
England observed that,
“ Nursing
staff treat deep coma patients with
continuing tenderness and address
patients by name, as the coma deepens
rather than lightens, perhaps from an
intuitive feeling that hearing has been
retained”.
Dr Evans says surgeons tell of persistent uneasiness at the
unpleasant job of harvesting organs,
particularly the heart. He says they
don’t get over it despite doing it many
times.
The Swedish medical writer, Nora Machado, quotes one expert
as saying,
“ Even surgeons are sometimes heard to say that the patient
suffered ‘ brain death’ one day and “
died the following day’.
D.a. Shewmon, Professor of Neurology and paediatrics,
University of California ( Los
Angeles ) school of medicine, says
somesurgeons feel they are
killing the
donors. He was interviewed
by the Australian Broadcasting
Corporation.
Wendy Carlisle : so is “ brain
death “ the death of the person in your
opinion?
Alan shewmon : I used to think that it
was but in fact, during the 1980s and
early 90s I read a number of articles
and gave lectures supporting that
idea, and since then I have had to
change my opinion about it due to an
accumulation of evidence to the
contrary…….
Wendy Carlisle: I think you ve’
actually called somewhere the notion
of “ brain death “ a medical fiction
Alan Shewmon: A legal fiction.
Wendy Carlisle : A legal
fiction what does that mean, then, in
your opinion for the whole donor debate
?
Alan Shewmon : I guess it ‘s
also a medical fiction. You ‘re right.
Dr David W. Evans is also
amongst a number of medical
professionals who doubt that all organ
donors diagnosed “ brain dead “are
actually brain dead ,
“ The reason why the heart goes on
beating in patients pronounced “ brain
dead “ is usually, that their brain
stems are not really and truly dead but
still providing the ‘ sympathetic tone’
necessary for the support of the blood
pressure . In other words, the state
of shock’ ( profound hypotension )
that characterises the destruction of
the brain stem has not occurred in
those patients”.
Dr David Hill concurs,
“ A measure of life is the continuing
hypothalamic function which controls
body temperature . If the patient is
warm then that part of the brain is
functioning “
Despite scientific advances there still
isn’t an absolute determination when
a person is finally dead .
Japanese cardiologist, Dr Yoshio
Watanabe adds,
“ if the entire brain including the
brain stem has indeed sustained
irreversible damage, cardiorespiratory
arrest Would inevitably ensue, bringing
about the person’s death.
However, the duration of this stage may
well last for several days to several
weeks when a respirator is used and
hence, this stage at best only predicts
that death of the individual is
imminent, not that it is confirmed.
The fact that some brain dead pregnant
women have given brith to babies can
be taken as strong evidence that the
person is still alive, and the use
of terms such as biomort or heart-
beating cadaver is nothing but a sophism
to conceal the contradicition in
transplant protagonists’ logic.
Medical and government authorities in
the United Kingdom now trying to stifle
professional debate and public
knowledge by telling medical staff in
the government health system not to
define death, and avoid terms like “
brain death “ the new term is “
certified dead” which avoids
uncomfortable medical definitions that
are difficult to defend or
explain . Death is then when a doctor
says the patient is dead, regardless.
But once an idea based on fact gains
credence no power can crush it. It was
Drs Basil Matta and Peter Young, who
wrote the now famous editorial in “
Aneasthesia “ the journal of British
Royal College of Anaesthetists,
recommending the use of anaesthetic to
prevent possible pain in donors,
“ The act of organ donation is a final
altruistic one and we should ensure the
provision of general anaesthesia at
least sufficient to prevent the
haemodynamic response to surgery.
Dr. Norm Barber in his book also adds a
nurse’s tale to show how disusting this
slippery shope is. This tale runs as
follows:
Transplant coordinators and donation
agenies tirelessly promise donor
families their loved ones will be
treated with dignity and respect.
Families are led to believe that
unaffected people with a higher cause
dismantle the bodies. But an American
nurse who has worked thirteen
years in the transplant
field in the united states says,
“
the families are led to
believe they are doing such a noble and
wonderful thing by donating their
loved ones organs . I tend to believe,
in their moment of grief, they are not
thinking clearly this is what happens.
A paitent is declared brain dead . The
family gives consent to remove organs /
tissue/ etc.This body is trying to “
die” but we keep it alive artificially
till suitable donors can be found .
Sometimes this can take many hours, as
precise tissue matches are not always at
the ready. Meanwhile, the body is
deteriorating.
My role in all this was waiting in the
operating room. ‘ Are they ready to
start this retrieval yet ? no, they
can’t find anybody to take the heart (
just an example ) . So when they finally
do find a recipient, teams come in from
various parts of the country to harvest
the various organs. The patient is
brought to the operating room, and the
procedure is begun . The heart is
removed first, followed by the other
organs . Sometimes an organ is not taken
because there was no recipient, or it
taken just for research. Occasionally
an organ is deemed unusable due to
disease process . Immediately after the
organs are removed, the various doctors
whisk them away in coolers, never giving
a thought to the person who just died or
the grieving family. They have no idea
of even the person’s name. So one by
one, these ghouls leave the operating
room till all that is left is the body
laying WIDE open, quite & cold , and the
nurses.
Usually some underling of a resident is
left to sew the body shut. It is a
hideous sight. And the smell of death is
starting to permeate the room.
Nauseating ! so the body is closed, and
that doctor leaves and all we have is
the body and the nurses. It’s left up
to the nurses to clean up one holy hell
of mess, and take care of this body that
has been defiled and forgotten. We must
pull all various tubes and lines out of
the body to make it presentable for
the family. As the tubes are pulled out,
this horrible stench exudes from the
depths of this former person. After all.
He has been kept alive artificially, and
his body has been trying to shut down
naturally.
As we are cleaning him up, we try very
carefully not to slip and fall in the
blood and fluids that cover the floor .
I try to keep in mind that this could
be my family member, and I take great
pains to clean the body as best as I
can before taking it to the morgue and
yet keeping in mind the fine doctors
that just left this nameless patient.
They are flying home in their Lear jets,
laughing and partying awaiting their
future glory for
“ saving” some poor suckers life with a
transplant.
Sorry to sound so glumy but I can’t
help but think if families could see how
their loved ones were treated, they
would never consent to the taking of
organs .
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