Altruism for a long period has been accepted to be the regulatory principle of moral organ donation in healthcare and has been used as a rationalization to reject or permit particular types of donation. Renal transplantation is prevalently preferred as the best mode of renal replacement therapy, and as previous studies have shown in comparing the mortality risk between dialysis and transplant patients, renal transplantation is much more superior when it comes to long-term survival of the patients. Unfortunately, the shortage of organ donation across the world proves to be a significant obstacle currently facing transplantation. Organ transplantation has widely been considered as a good thing making it impartially uncontentious, but this outlook depends upon a supply of the donated. The reason is that not every organ donation is considered ethically tolerable.
Nevertheless, there are transplant centers accepting unrelated living donors irrespective of high degrees of HLA mismatch which still shows high patients' survival rates. Therefore, the use of altruistic strangers can be the solution to the organ shortage. The following paper will argue that irrespective of the prominent idea against altruistic organ donation because of the inadequate definition of policies and practice, altruistic donations can help in saving lives of patients around the world making it an alternative to cadaver organs as long as the volunteers are well educated and the screened before donation.
Opposing Perspective
The hesitancy to carry out the procedure of altruistic organ donation from unconventional donors arises from ethical consideration. The basis of this argument is that many people in understanding that they can donate their body parts for cash they will easily commercialize the idea and not even consider the impact such a decision would have in their life. Gohh et al., (619) stated that there are circumstances where the motivation behind the donor remains unclear. In such a situation, most of the organ donors have a financial problem, and they perceive this idea as the only option that they can raise cash to solve their life problems. It is often a challenge to understand the honest reason why a person might be donating their organs, and this can be a setback to the medical practitioners since it presents the idea that someone is partially giving up half of their life or well-being for the sake of a stranger to live. Eliminating the financial benefit can easily help in determining whether such is a Samaritan move, or if there are other intentions behind the donation. Additionally, when healthcare establishments focus mainly on using organs from strangers, it would set the transplant medicine on a fragile slope where many institutions would commercialize the donation of the vital organs. Nevertheless, there is no need to believe that a person would be donating his or her organs to strangers as a pathological obsession. Gohh et al., (620) highlighted that there are no pieces of evidence of psychopathology as there are no patients who have ever regretted receiving organ transplantation or developed any psychological complications.
Reasons
Organ donation is a gift of life as it decreases the shortage of organs in the healthcare market thus helping people with critical organ failures. The number of people hospitalized for organ infection and failure is continuously increasing while the number of available organs to meet this demand is declining. In turn, this puts many patients on a long list of waiting where some even end up dying before they have the opportunity to have an organ transplant. It is for this reason that it is only illogical to argue against people who consent to offer their organs altruistically. Moorlock, Ives and Drapper (144) mentioned that through time people have often been encouraged to donate blood as a way of having enough back-up so that in case there is an accident the patients do not have to be kept waiting which could only lead to a tragic ending, as well as highlight the inefficiency of the healthcare practice. The same applies to the donation and availability of the critical organs such as kidneys. Fortin et al., (216) defined altruism in organ donation as the process of giving without expectations. Understanding this definition helps in formulating the policies hindering people from donating the organs because many institutions have strict policies regarding the procedures of organ donation, and it is this that causes the shortage of available organs. The fact that the socialized persons have a sense of equity and this makes the organs readily available for an emergency transplant should hence be used as an added advantage that can minimize the adverse effects affecting the organ transplantation industry (Bailey et al., 107). Therefore, altruistic organ donation is the solution to the growing problem of people unable to recover from organ failure.
The procedure of organ donation is always safe regarding both short and long-term. The standard argument is that the method of harvesting the body part from a living donor can threaten their safety and might even result in death. However, this is not the case as it happens in a practical setting. Gohh et al., (620) argued that the risk of living donor mortality is 0.03%, indicating that over 99.5% of people who donate their organs in a clinical setting never encounter any complications after the surgical process. This is because the current practices are demonstrated with excellent and safe procedures, taking into consideration both short and long-term complications that might arise. Besides, the healthcare professionals often assess an individual’s health before they carry forward with the procedure. Meaning that if a person’s health will be affected if they donate an organ, then the ethics of practicing medicine demands that the doctors must warn the person from making such a decision. Dalal (89) indicated that there is never a medical peril to an altruistic donor which is greater than that which a conventional living donor experiences. The same care that the doctors offer to the obligated donor is the same care they give altruistic donor because the core principle of practice is that every practitioner must offer quality care without discrimination. It is because of this that Fournier et al. (47) added that both developing and developed countries had instituted guidelines enhancing the safety and accessibility to organ donation to ensure that not everyone is free to donate their organs.
The proposal to contribute is made altruistically hence there is a chance that the person donating the organ is acting independently without any external pressure. The conventional donor such as the family member of the patient in need of organ transplantation, may at times feel that they are forced into the decision against their own will. Farsides (74) mentioned that altruism in organ donation protects the donor from the social pressure that they must donate like it is in the case of conventional donation where a person might donate their organs against their will. Apart from this, Shaw (428) commented that potential living donors fulfill the legal requirements of organ donations which cannot be the same case of a dead donor whose parts might be taken against his or her will. The decision of taking the organs of a deceased person is always in the hand of the family, and maybe this was not something that they wanted while they were alive. However, this is not the case with living donors. No one ever makes the decisions on behalf of the altruistic donors, hence making their choice more valid compared to the alternative. The option does affect not only the donors but also the patients. Sharp and Randhawa (165) indicated that many patients feel free and more comfortable to receive an organ transplant if they know that they are freed from the obligation of gift exchange. The sense of commitment and walking with the guilt that there is an individual who might ask for something in exchange for their organ in the future might psychologically affect the patient. However, altruism, which is an act where a person willing considers the interest of another person without an ulterior motive, sets the patient free from the conditional relationship created from by the donation.
Lastly, organ donation from a living individual offers a higher chance of being effective in saving one’s life compared to harvested organs from a dead individual. Bos et al. (781) supported this by mentioning that the organs from the deceased never last longer compared to the organs from a living donor. This is an essential aspect especially if the organs are not to be transplanted soon because it will only create a circumstance where there are wastes. However, this has not been the case yet, because the demand for organs is higher than the available organs in the market. Shepherd, O'Carroll, and Ferguson (131) highlighted that most of the patients who receive a kidney from a living donor never spend so much time on dialysis compared to individuals who get their kidneys from a deceased person. This is because the new kidney does not take long to become one with the body like it is in the case of an organ that was also dying and needed time to become functional fully. Besides, it is easy to be fully aware of a living person's health condition, and this is not the same case with a dead body. Murphy and Adams (128) added that using living donor organs give the doctors an opportunity to know more about the donor’s health and any possible risk for the patient. Therefore, altruistic organ donation allows the healthcare professional to understand in-depth any associated problems with the organs to be donated before they are removed from a person.
Conclusion
The increasing shortage of organs in the market puts the lives of million patients at risk of not getting better. Additionally, scarcity of the vital organs only makes organ transplant care expensive for many people to afford it. The argument reveals that altruistic organ donation is not and should not be controversial as it is the only solution to the mentioned problem hindering organ transplant practice. Nevertheless, the practice should be administered and governed by strict policies that will make sure that establishments do not commercialize the idea. Additionally, it is essential that the donors are well screened and educated on the risks of donating their organ to minimize the cases of complications and understand why sometimes it is reasonable that they do not willingly offer their organs.
Works Cited
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