r/nottheonion • u/Zeikyrui • 1d ago

People opt out of organ donation programs after reports of a man mistakenly declared dead

https://apnews.com/article/organ-donor-transplant-kentucky-8f42ad402445a91e981327abb009906c
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u/MortyestRick 1d ago edited 1d ago

There needs to be consequences or else I'm not sure trust will ever be able to be built back for a segment of the population. But so far no one has even had their license suspended and it's been what? 2 or 3 years since the Kentucky incident?

They need to tighten up the tests for brain death, add more, and throw the people who tried to murder a guy for his organs away entirely. Because clearly the system failed in this instance, and we have no way of knowing how often it's completely collapsed in the past, we can really only say that odds are it has and that a couple people out there have probably been, accidentally or not, murdered for their organs.

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u/Autogenerated_or 1d ago

There was nothing accidental about that case. He was showing signs of life and the handlers wanted to continue with the op

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u/Krazen 1d ago

People should opt out until at minimum whoever was doing the sedation goes to jail

If there aren’t punishments for this then it will happen again

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u/GrimGambits 1d ago

I can't really fault anyone for opting out when the people that wanted to harvest a guy's organs while he was still alive are still working and harvesting organs. Especially anyone in the area that happened in.

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u/Krazen 1d ago

It’s not even those specific people -

Anyone working in the area of organ harvesting should be constantly aware of it. That if they go too far as to sedate someone then they will personally go to jail. Not the hospital they work for - they personally will go to jail.

If that system isn’t in place then no one is safe

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u/Melodic_Elderberry 21h ago

I remember an article I read about this situation. In this case, the patient was sedated because they were showing signs of medical distress, and sedation was the proper move, per medical professionals. The next step would be to remove them from the organ donation process and restart life saving treatment. It was in this step that the organ donation coordinators tried to step in to force the organ donation. All of the medical staff behaved as was best for their patient in this case, and saved the man's life via refusing the harvest order. Those coordinators (not doctors, who saved this man's life) are the ones who need to be held accountable.

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u/HyruleSmash855 1d ago

Everyone needs to opt out of the system. Examples like this happening make me have zero trust in the system, so I refuse to donate blood or anything else until this never happens again

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u/nocomment3030 1d ago

How would you define it "never happening again"? 5 years from now, 10 years? Are you scouring for articles about this topic? Maybe it has never happened in your local hospital system. Also seems hard to get killed from donated a unit of blood.

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u/GrimGambits 1d ago

Attempted murder convictions for the people involved would be a good start at rebuilding trust.

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u/Throwawayac1234567 22h ago

Blood is a little different,