No Mandate Brown has made some noises about presumed consent for organ donations and suddenly he’s the saviour of people on organ waiting lists everywhere.

Let’s just get this straight.  He hasn’t even proposed that the system of organ donations should be changed, he’s just said that he thinks it’s a good idea and that we should have a “national debate” about it which means getting MPs to turn up for photo opportunities at meetings of hand-picked Liebour supporters to pretend that the electorate is involved in the decision making process.  It’s a controversial subject, he won’t go out on a limb and propose it as policy himself.

Personally, I think presumed consent is a good idea.  I’ve been an organ donor since I got my provisional driving licence at the age of 17 and my family all know that I’m a donor.  I don’t care whether I’m buried or burnt in one piece or with bits missing – I’ll be dead, I don’t care.  I like the idea that when I’m dead I might save someone’s life with some part of my body.

One of my kids had major heart surgery a few years ago and he got a donor heart valve.  That donor valve means that he won’t have to go back to have more surgery until his mid to late teens whereas with an artificial valve he would have been going back in the next couple of years for surgery that he needn’t have had.  As bad as it sounds, we were lucky someone died on that day and their heart valve was used in my son.  If that person hadn’t been an organ donor then my son would be getting ill again now and we’d be planning for the next trip to hospital.

There aren’t enough organ donors and it’s because people either can’t be arsed to register or they don’t know how to.  The people who run the organ donor card scheme reckon that most people are in favour of donating their organs when asked but that only translates into a relatively small amount of people who actually go as far as putting their details on the register.  Family consent is only given in 6 out of 10 cases and 2,400 transplants were carried out last year.  If only 60% of those 4 in 10 organs that are wasted because the family won’t consent were made available then every one of the 1,000 people per year who die on the waiting list would be given a chance of life.

As long as there is a way to opt out of being a donor then I don’t see a problem with presumed consent.  The millions of people who can’t be bothered to put themselves on the register would be equally lazy when it comes to taking themselves off the list.

Edit:
Forgot to point out that this is a devolved issue so, again, the One Eyed Wonder of Wankistan is interfering in things that don’t affect his own constituents.

Technorati Tags: Organ Donation, Presumed Consent