Organ Donation the Gift of Life

Overview:

“Human organ can either be donated as free (gift) or sold by the donor. The organ could be accepted/purchased directly by a patient/ his relatives or “through a third party”. Selling of human organ has enormous ethical, socio-cultural and religious implications and is prohibited in majority of countries of the world. It is banned in US and most of the European countries. The Islamic religious scholars also disapprove this practice of selling human organ. The organ donation is based on three Islamic principles i.e. beneficence, gift (donation) and usefulness and sustenance of human life”.

Background:

Organ transplantation is the established treatment for the failure of vital organ such as the kidney, pancreas, liver, heart or lung. Kidneys are by far the most common type of organ transplant. Future demand for organ transplants is likely to increase due to the rapid rise in some diseases, such as diabetes and hepatitis C, together with an ageing population.

Organ transplantation is the therapeutic use of human organs involving the substitution of a non-functional organ for another one coming from a donor. Clinical organ transplantation began in the mid 1950s with kidney transplantation procedures between twins. Simultaneously with kidney transplantation, the first heart (1967) and the liver (1979) transplantation were performed. The use of human organs for transplantation has steadily increased during the past decades. Organ transplantation is now the most cost-effective treatment for end-stage renal failure, and for end-stage failure of organs such as liver, lung and heart, it is the only available treatment. An organ transplant is lifesaving and is in most cases the only available treatment.

Who Can Be a Donor?

Organ donation takes healthy organ and tissues from one person for transplantation into another, in order to replace diseased and non-functioning organ. Organ/tissue, which is suitable for transplant, includes heart, kidney, lungs, liver, pancreas, skin and bone. Most donated organ come from people who die while on life support, following a severe brain injury. Brain death, unlike a coma, is the complete and irreversible cessation of all brain function. Brain death usually occurs when a person receives a severe head injury, suffers stoke or a brain hemorrhages or any other event which deprives the brain of oxygen. In some countries organs are also taken from non-heart-beating donors (NHBDs). NHBDs are patients who have died from cardiac death i.e. irreversible loss of heart and lung function.

Donor Selection:

Organ recipients can not be selected by the donor but are selected based on medical need and tissue compatibility. However, there is currently a debate regarding whether donors should be allowed to direct their organs to a specific recipient. Opponents argue that allowing donors to select recipients would lead to the discrimination of person on the basis of race, gender or religion; opponents also invoke the principle of justice which supports an equal distribution of life-saving resources independent of characteristics, such as race etc. Living organ donation involves in organ or part of an organ being taken from a healthy living person (known as a living donor) and transplanted into a person with organ failure. Typically a living donor is related to the person awaiting a transplant e.g. sibling or parent. This is mainly because someone who is closely related will have a better chance of being a good tissue match. Some countries allow un-related living donation, whereby friends, colleagues and even strangers are allowed to donate an organ for transplant. Living donors can only donate those organs or tissues, which they can live a healthy lifestyle without. These include a kidney, a lung, and a part of liver, blood or bone marrow.