Kidney transplant declined due to mental disability

I skim read the link.
If organs are in short supply then they are better giving to someone who can live a better life with them.
It is like saying 'you can't put a price on a life', well the NHS is not a bottomless pit of money and so you clearly must put a price on a life.

Absolutely disgusting.

But then I think life is sacrosanct.

I think life is something special too, but the issue here is that there are less organs available to those who need them so they must prioritise. A retard is not the best use of an organ.
 
Seriously screw everything about this situation.

If forced to make this decision, I would side with the doctors mainly because donation from the family, as someone has said, contains inherent risks. I know I certainly wouldn't want to be responsible for two dead people just because one of them wanted to risk their life to temporarily extend the life of the other.

It's a horrible situation and I would never want to get anyone angry about it, but at the end of the day, 60 years ago this wouldn't even be an issue. Moral and ethical questions raised by modern medicine are seriously soul-destroying.
 
I know I certainly wouldn't want to be responsible for two dead people just because one of them wanted to risk their life to temporarily extend the life of the other.

That's not the doctors decision to make. That's the person donating the organs decision to make. If they want to risk their life for somebody else, that is ultimately their decision.
 
I skim read the link.
If organs are in short supply then they are better giving to someone who can live a better life with them.
It is like saying 'you can't put a price on a life', well the NHS is not a bottomless pit of money and so you clearly must put a price on a life.



I think life is something special too, but the issue here is that there are less organs available to those who need them so they must prioritise. A retard is not the best use of an organ.

Good Lord.
 
I skim read the link.
If organs are in short supply then they are better giving to someone who can live a better life with them.
It is like saying 'you can't put a price on a life', well the NHS is not a bottomless pit of money and so you clearly must put a price on a life.

I think life is something special too, but the issue here is that there are less organs available to those who need them so they must prioritise. A retard is not the best use of an organ.

1) It's America not the UK.
2) The family will donate to the child, not a kidney from the general waiting list.
3) The family don't offer said kidney to anyone else so no one else will receive the benefit of the kidney.
4) The doctor denied it on the basis of quality of life (seriousness of the drugs and the need of a replacement in ~10 years).

I really wonder why people comment on some threads and don't bother reading the background, instead just jumping to conclusions. :confused:
 
That's not the doctors decision to make. That's the person donating the organs decision to make. If they want to risk their life for somebody else, that is ultimately their decision.

No, that IS the doctor's decision to make. If the donor and the acceptor died then those deaths would be on that doctor's record. Performing a surgery is a weigh of pros and cons, if the risks outweigh the benefits then hospitals will not allow a surgery to take place.
 
No, that IS the doctor's decision to make. If the donor and the acceptor died then those deaths would be on that doctor's record. Performing a surgery is a weigh of pros and cons, if the risks outweigh the benefits then hospitals will not allow a surgery to take place.

Every surgery, minor or major, could result in death. I believe that everyone would want surgery for a family member if there was eve the slightest chance of survival. If we didn't take risks where would we be today?
 
Wow, I don't even know what to say to that. What a horrible person you are...

So you would pick the retard over a person who can lead a normal, working life when there is only the one organ? Of course not. You pick the person who will gain the best quality of life from it.
Yes it is absolutely horrible, but it is a choice that someone must be a made. Whatever choice they make makes them a 'See you next Tuesday'.
Before condemning my comments you must realise there are many people needing the organ and only one can have it.
If you can find a way to keep both of them alive then I am all ears, but until then, realise that someone, somewhere, has to make these awful choices on a day-to-day basis and live with telling people that their son/daughter cannot have the organ they need to stay alive.
 
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Every surgery, minor or major, could result in death. I believe that everyone would want surgery for a family member if there was eve the slightest chance of survival. If we didn't take risks where would we be today?

Of course every surgery has inherent risks, but they usually have the pay-off of returning a person to a normal life. Surely you can understand the doctor's reasoning here at least somewhat?
 
So you would pick the retard over a person who can lead a normal, working life when there is only the one organ? Of course not. You pick the person who will gain the best quality of life from it.
Yes it is absolutely horrible, but it is a choice that someone must be a made. Whatever choice they make makes them a 'See you next Tuesday'.
Before condemning my comments you must realise there are many people needing the organ and only one can have it.
If you can find a way to keep both of them alive then I am all ears, but until then, realise that someone, somewhere, has to make these awful choices on a day-to-day basis and live with telling people that their son/daughter cannot have the organ they need to stay alive.

Actually I would have a normal list system, irrespective of what type of person was on it.

What sort of "retard" should get preference over other "retards"? What constitutes retardness?

I'm actually appalled.
 
Actually I would have a normal list system, irrespective of what type of person was on it.

What sort of "retard" should get preference over other "retards"? What constitutes retardness?

I'm actually appalled.

I did a search on the link and did says retard 8 times.
Having a list for everyone doesn't work. If it was binge drinkers would be getting all the new livers.

My wording is not PC but I skip straight to the point that needs to be made. Give the organ to the person who can get their life improved the most significantly by it. The choice will be made on a multi-criteria based decision tool and mental well-being will surely be one of the attributes on there.
 
So you would pick the retard over a person who can lead a normal, working life when there is only the one organ? Of course not. You pick the person who will gain the best quality of life from it.

Ok, understandable viewpoint.

Yes it is absolutely horrible, but it is a choice that someone must be a made. Whatever choice they make makes them a 'See you next Tuesday'.
Before condemning my comments you must realise there are many people needing the organ and only one can have it.

Erm, no, there's one person who can have the organ, if they don't have it the family aren't donating elsewhere.

If you can find a way to keep both of them alive then I am all ears, but until then, realise that someone, somewhere, has to make these awful choices on a day-to-day basis and live with telling people that their son/daughter cannot have the organ they need to stay alive.

How about you read the background to what you comment on? Or do you just make assumptions about everything?
 
So you would pick the retard over a person who can lead a normal, working life when there is only the one organ? Of course not. You pick the person who will gain the best quality of life from it.
Yes it is absolutely horrible, but it is a choice that someone must be a made. Whatever choice they make makes them a 'See you next Tuesday'.
Before condemning my comments you must realise there are many people needing the organ and only one can have it.
If you can find a way to keep both of them alive then I am all ears, but until then, realise that someone, somewhere, has to make these awful choices on a day-to-day basis and live with telling people that their son/daughter cannot have the organ they need to stay alive.

Have you not read the story? The organ would not be available to anyone else because a family member was going to donate it.

EDIT: Pudney said this just before me
 
You can't really comment on this specific case for the reasons above. You don't know if there is any current medication which may clash with transplant medication. You don't know if the doctors think she'll survive etc etc. Any outcome is awful, so the doctors are stuck between a rock and a hard place tbh. The website is also probably quite biased - what does the appearance of the doctor have to do with anything for example?

These sorts of decisions must be made all the time; two people need an operation, who should have it, who should have the organs etc, so they NEED some sort of system to make those decisions.

It's one of those things that if you're involved, it's horrific, but in reality, it's the best decision. Like researching a cure for a really rare disease; it's not worth funding as at the end of the day you'll save very few people compared to curing a more common disease. You'll feel very differently if you or someone close is the person affected by it, however.


Actually I would have a normal list system, irrespective of what type of person was on it.

What sort of "retard" should get preference over other "retards"? What constitutes retardness?

I'm actually appalled.

In fairness, as far as I'm aware it is a term. You can't just have a list, what if the person at the top is only going to live a month anyway? What if for whatever reason they're likely to reject the organ? There has to be a scoring system or similar.

Have you not read the story? The organ would not be available to anyone else because a family member was going to donate it.

EDIT: Pudney said this just before me

There is still time in surgery, a cost to others (in time, money etc etc), the doctor has a life on his hands and having assessed the situation, as a medical professional, made an educated decision. I'm sure they could get it done privately? Is this in a real hospital?
 
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Have you not read the story? The organ would not be available to anyone else because a family member was going to donate it.

EDIT: Pudney said this just before me

Of course I read the story. The girl will be on a national register for organs. I am making comments on awaiting an organ, I made no reference to whether it was from a family member or not.
 
You can't really comment on this specific case for the reasons above. You don't know if there is any current medication which may clash with transplant medication. You don't know if the doctors think she'll survive etc etc. Any outcome is awful, so the doctors are stuck between a rock and a hard place tbh. The website is also probably quite biased - what does the appearance of the doctor have to do with anything for example?

These sorts of decisions must be made all the time; two people need an operation, who should have it, who should have the organs etc, so they NEED some sort of system to make those decisions.

It's one of those things that if you're involved, it's horrific, but in reality, it's the best decision. Like researching a cure for a really rare disease; it's not worth funding as at the end of the day you'll save very few people compared to curing a more common disease. You'll feel very differently if you or someone close is the person affected by it, however.

Well put :).
 
So you would pick the retard over a person who can lead a normal, working life when there is only the one organ? Of course not. You pick the person who will gain the best quality of life from it.
Yes it is absolutely horrible, but it is a choice that someone must be a made. Whatever choice they make makes them a 'See you next Tuesday'.
Before condemning my comments you must realise there are many people needing the organ and only one can have it

Of course, a person without a mental disability receiving an organ transplant is probably going to have a better quality life than someone with a mental disability - I'm not disagreeing with that. In this case however, family members were willing to donate their own kidneys to the patient, yet ultimately still got turned away (no point commenting further on this as we don't know the full details surrounding the patient).

Regardless, it was the way you were (and still are) referring to people with mental disabilities as "retards" which got to me.
 
Regardless, it was the way you were (and still are) referring to people with mental disabilities as "retards" which got to me.

Mentally retarded is a retard. It is just a shortened form of it and for some reason the PC brigade go mad at the word.
Mental disabilities doesn't equal retard, but the girl in the link is as it says so repeatedly.
 
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