I didn't know (sorry if you did), but there's actually a website in the U.S that allows people who need a kidney to plead directly for a donor online.... Bloody Americans, right!? Wrong. The website is also in the UK!
So the website (www.matchingdonors.co.uk) puts people seeking organ transplants in direct contact with potential living donors for a registration fee. An initial review by the UK Human Tissue Authority said that the website charged up to £375 for potential organ recipients to register!
Has to be illegal, right?!
No. Apparently arranging so called “directed altruistic donations” is NOT illegal in the UK, providing that there is valid consent between the parties and that no reward is given, received, offered, or sought for the supply of an organ.
In the NHS’s transplant scheme, people who choose to donate a kidney to a stranger — becoming “non-directed altruistic donors” — do not know who will receive the organ at the time of donation and may never know. The NHS runs an anonymous scheme so that altruistic donors are not informed who ends up getting their kidney (although a joint agreement can be made for contact after the surgery). It is (rightly) given to the person who is judged by a medical panel to most need it and who will benefit most from it.
But apparently the shortage of donors and long waiting times for transplants have led to more people placing appeals directly on the internet to find identifiable living donors, in some kind of X-Factor style auditions.
Here's how it works...
Some needy recipients upload videos of themselves perhaps playing the guitar, while others feature their children asking viewers to help make their parents better. A donor checks out the videos and once they've decided who they would like to donate their kidney to, they can check to see if they are a blood type match before their suitability is tested further.
They can even message the person if they like! So they can become best pals and give each other ridiculous gifts like body parts for the rest of their lives (or - call me a sceptic - arrange financial compensation on the sly).
NHS Blood and Transplant said that this relatively new development in altruistic donation “presents complex legal, ethical, and practical questions for everyone in the transplant community.” OBVIOUSLY.
I mean, perhaps I am just uncomfortable with people begging for body parts? Maybe it's something that I don't really understand, feel uncomfortable with, and actually my initial reaction is fear of the unknown, misinterpreted as disgust.
Most press coverage has been pretty positive!
Paul Dooley, from MatchingDonors told ITV: 'We have wanted to come to England for the longest time. We have the ability to take our system to the UK and save their lives.'
Rebecca Rogers from Ramsgate has signed up to MatchingDonors because she wants a more personal system.'I like knowing who I am going to give my kidney to,' she told ITV.'You don't get that in the UK. You just go to the hospital and they expect you to give it up just like that.'
Patient Saira Khan who needs a kidney has become the first to sign up in the UK. The mother-of-three says she is a qualified teacher and would love to return to her job one day.'I need a new kidney very badly. My kidneys were destroyed through no fault of my own,' she said in her post. However, she says she is not yet on dialysis and is currently controlling her condition with medication. It is therefore unlikely that Mrs Khan would be viewed as a 'priority' on the NHS transplant list.
These accounts sound alright, do they not? People like knowing who they're giving their kidneys to, people who aren't an NHS priority could get a kidney sooner... Coupled with the stats that apparently the American site has matched around 250 strangers; more than twice as many as the NHS scheme, according to ITV (putting aside the fact that the U.S is a much larger country, of course).
I just find the whole thing creepy. And for me, if I were going to give away an organ, I would want it to go to the person at the top of the NHS priority list! Who am I to decide who is more deserving of one of my kidneys? I mean, I think you have to be pretty reductionist about the whole thing - it's all very well and good wondering whether you might be giving your kidney to the next Jimmy Savile or Einstein, but who knows what that person will go on to achieve? Surely the priority is the person who is the sickest, not the person who has the cutest children and the longest sob story?
I for one thing the whole concept sucks; but would love to know what you guys think...
L.
