How brain-death guidelines protect patients
National Post | Sam D. Shemie
The issue of determining when an individual is legally dead was recently brought into the spotlight by a news story in the National Post (“ ‘Legally dead’ may still be alive: warning over new organ-donor guidelines,†Aug. 28). The article is disturbing due to the amount of credence it gives to a legal scholar’s paper, versus any direct consultation with the national and world experts who have developed the guidelines for determination of death. Not only are the comments in the piece misleading, in many instances, they seem based on fear-mongering rather than science.
Contrary to the impression left by this article, Canadians can rest assured that brain-death guidelines are legal and legitimate. They were designed to ensure consistent declaration of death for the protection of critically ill patients; not to favour organ donation rates.
Despite widespread medical and legal acceptance of neurological death (a.k.a. “brain deathâ€) around the globe, there was substantial variation in the recognition, diagnosis and documentation of it in Canada. To ensure brain death was being determined the same way for dying patients from one end of the country to the other, The Canadian Council for Donation and Transplantation (CCDT), now part of Canadian Blood Services, was funded by Health Canada to develop leading practices related to the determination of death and organ/tissue donation.
Read more
{Register to be an organ,eye and tissue donor. To learn how, www.donatelife.net or www.organdonor.gov}
The issue of determining when an individual is legally dead was recently brought into the spotlight by a news story in the National Post (“ ‘Legally dead’ may still be alive: warning over new organ-donor guidelines,†Aug. 28). The article is disturbing due to the amount of credence it gives to a legal scholar’s paper, versus any direct consultation with the national and world experts who have developed the guidelines for determination of death. Not only are the comments in the piece misleading, in many instances, they seem based on fear-mongering rather than science.
Contrary to the impression left by this article, Canadians can rest assured that brain-death guidelines are legal and legitimate. They were designed to ensure consistent declaration of death for the protection of critically ill patients; not to favour organ donation rates.
Despite widespread medical and legal acceptance of neurological death (a.k.a. “brain deathâ€) around the globe, there was substantial variation in the recognition, diagnosis and documentation of it in Canada. To ensure brain death was being determined the same way for dying patients from one end of the country to the other, The Canadian Council for Donation and Transplantation (CCDT), now part of Canadian Blood Services, was funded by Health Canada to develop leading practices related to the determination of death and organ/tissue donation.
Read more
{Register to be an organ,eye and tissue donor. To learn how, www.donatelife.net or www.organdonor.gov}
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