So we start on common ground: illegal and unregulated organ markets are reprehensible consequences of individuals driven to seek transplantation therapy. The tragedy has played out across the world. The drive for survival is a very strong human instinct and one that overcomes feelings and common bonds between people. It overthrows decency and humanity and it requires consequentially strong and united laws and regulations. ‘I must leave the country tonight because they are shooting my donor tomorrow,’ was said by a patient to one of my colleagues recently. Such opportunistic human cannibalism has no place in healthcare.
Organ donation after death is the only practicable solution for heart, lung, pancreas, intestine, composite tissue and most liver recipients. There can be no solution that ignores the reality of people with these needs. By focusing on kidneys alone, where the solutions must embrace both the deceased and the living donor, you seem to have discarded the broader needs for transplantation. I thus seek more from you than a throw-away line on ‘the need to make the most use of posthumous donation’.
