Presumed Consent

Ellie Lacey was diagnosed with unexplained liver failure in 2016, and her condition became so severe that she required a liver transplant in order to survive. As luck would have it, after looking through the worldwide database, the hospital found a match for her and was able to save her life. The reason I'm writing this article is because last year, 21 families did not give their consent for their organs to be donated when they were necessary to save someone's life. Had they consented, they could have saved a large number of lives.

Wales is unique in that they have a system for organ donation called "Presumed Consent" which states that any child born in Wales, is automatically put onto the organ donor list and if you want to be taken off the list, you need to opt out (when you are an adult). This is the opposite of the system in motion in the rest of the UK, whereby if you want to opt into the organ donor list, you need to register to be added onto it. Herein lies the problem; Wales has approximately 1.2 million people on the organ donor list, and England have 19.8 million. These numbers are misleading however, for they give the illusion that the presumed consent system is less effective. There are 3 million people living in Wales and 66.5 million people living in England. Percentage-wise, Wales is ahead by 13 (Wales = 40%, England 29.7%). If the Uk had a 40% subscription rate as Wales, there would be 26.6 million people on the organ donor registry. in England alone. That would be another 6.8 million people on the registry, greatly increasing the number of donors available and greatly increasing the chance of survival of people needing an organ transplant.

It's clear to see that presumed consent works, and that it if we want people to actually survive major organ failures, then this needs to be implemented soon. Fortunately, chief medical staff in Wales have set up consultations with those of the rest of the UK, and the hope in doing so is to convince the rest of the UK nations to adopt the presumed consent system for the safe-keep of future generations. With luck, and a good argument, we will see this being implemented in the near future.

Thank you for reading this article, I hope that you found it interesting and that you discuss it with friends and family to get their opinions on the matter. This has been Timothy K. Bosse, wishing you a happy, organ failure-free day!

Citations:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-42652382
https://www.organdonation.nhs.uk/supporting-my-decision/organ-donor-card/
https://www.organdonation.nhs.uk/supporting-my-decision/statistics-about-organ-donation/
https://nhsbtdbe.blob.core.windows.net/umbraco-assets/1343/annual_stats.pdf


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