Every Life Matters: Uncovering and Combating the Horrors of the Organ Shortage
The bottom line is that there are not enough organs available for the increasing amount of people who need them. Ever since the first ever organ transplant in 1954, people have been able to give and receive the gift of life, an organ, prolonging and saving the lives of thousands of people; and, with arising medical and technological innovations such as immunosuppressive drugs, organ transplantation is conducted in over ninety countries today, as described by Drs. Ambagtsheer, Zaitch, and Weimar in their article “The battle for human organs” (Ambagtsheer, Zaitch, & Weimar, 2013). Organ transplantation survival rates are increasing, and transplantation is becoming …show more content…
The increasing safety and feasibility of organ transplantation coupled with the increasing scarcity of available organs result in more desperate people who seek strategies in order to obtain organs outside their home countries who thirst for longer life. As a result, organs are becoming more valuable, and with increased organ value comes increased profitability—fueling the desire to trade and sell organs (Ambagtsheer, et al., 2013). Coinciding current altruistic procurement systems of organ supply—the present system of organ donation—is a black market that coexists in order to “meet the demand that these present altruistic systems fail to fulfill” (Ambagtsheer, et al., …show more content…
Patience (2015), in his article titled “China’s black market for organ donations” that aims to shed light on how China is suffering from the organ shortage, states that: for years, China harvested the organs of prisoners on death row in order to meet demand; however, this practice was terminated due to international condemnation. Now, the government says it will only rely on public donations and has established a national organ bank, which in theory is intended to distribute organs to those who are the most in need (Patience, 2015). However, the largest problem that the government faces stems from “persuading the public to donate in the first place,” Patience (2015) goes on to explain. Since many Chinese citizens believe the body is sacred and should be buried intact to show respect to their ancestors, the country’s donor rates are among the lowest in the world with 0.6 per million people, as opposed to thirty-seven per million people in Spain (Patience, 2015). More than 12,000 transplants are expected to be carried out this year, which is an increase in the number of transplants carried out when it relied on prisoners’ organs, but the demand is nowhere close to being met, the demand being over 300,000 people (Patience, 2015). This extensive demand cannot be fulfilled via altruistic,
The bottom line is that there are not enough organs available for the increasing amount of people who need them. Ever since the first ever organ transplant in 1954, people have been able to give and receive the gift of life, an organ, prolonging and saving the lives of thousands of people; and, with arising medical and technological innovations such as immunosuppressive drugs, organ transplantation is conducted in over ninety countries today, as described by Drs. Ambagtsheer, Zaitch, and Weimar in their article “The battle for human organs” (Ambagtsheer, Zaitch, & Weimar, 2013). Organ transplantation survival rates are increasing, and transplantation is becoming …show more content…
The increasing safety and feasibility of organ transplantation coupled with the increasing scarcity of available organs result in more desperate people who seek strategies in order to obtain organs outside their home countries who thirst for longer life. As a result, organs are becoming more valuable, and with increased organ value comes increased profitability—fueling the desire to trade and sell organs (Ambagtsheer, et al., 2013). Coinciding current altruistic procurement systems of organ supply—the present system of organ donation—is a black market that coexists in order to “meet the demand that these present altruistic systems fail to fulfill” (Ambagtsheer, et al., …show more content…
Patience (2015), in his article titled “China’s black market for organ donations” that aims to shed light on how China is suffering from the organ shortage, states that: for years, China harvested the organs of prisoners on death row in order to meet demand; however, this practice was terminated due to international condemnation. Now, the government says it will only rely on public donations and has established a national organ bank, which in theory is intended to distribute organs to those who are the most in need (Patience, 2015). However, the largest problem that the government faces stems from “persuading the public to donate in the first place,” Patience (2015) goes on to explain. Since many Chinese citizens believe the body is sacred and should be buried intact to show respect to their ancestors, the country’s donor rates are among the lowest in the world with 0.6 per million people, as opposed to thirty-seven per million people in Spain (Patience, 2015). More than 12,000 transplants are expected to be carried out this year, which is an increase in the number of transplants carried out when it relied on prisoners’ organs, but the demand is nowhere close to being met, the demand being over 300,000 people (Patience, 2015). This extensive demand cannot be fulfilled via altruistic,