Not Dead Yet Urges Secretary Sebelius and Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network to Prohibit Organ Procurers from Pressuring Sick or Injured to Give Up on Living

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Not Dead Yet, a national disability rights organization, is calling upon Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network to adopt national standards prohibiting organ procurement staff from initiating organ donation discussions with individuals or family members before they have made a decision to withdraw life-sustaining treatment. The OPTN Board is scheduled to vote at its June 24-25 meeting on a policy allowing individual hospitals to set their own organ procurement standards regarding the timing of such discussions.

Not Dead Yet, a national disability rights organization, is calling upon Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network to adopt national standards prohibiting organ procurement staff from initiating organ donation discussions with individuals or family members before they have made a decision to withdraw life-sustaining treatment. The OPTN Board is scheduled to vote at its June 24-25 meeting on a policy allowing individual hospitals to set their own organ procurement standards.

“A year ago, over 200 disability advocates sent messages to the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN), expressing concern over proposed organ procurement protocols,” said Diane Coleman, President and CEO of Not Dead Yet. “These proposals would have allowed organ donation to be discussed with individuals who depend on life sustaining treatment and their families before a decision to withdraw life-sustaining treatment has been made. This could affect people with upper spinal cord injuries, neuromuscular disabilities and severe brain injuries.”

Not Dead Yet filed public comments regarding both the proposed protocols, which pertain to organ donation after cardiac or circulatory death (as distinguished from brain death), and related changes to OPTN bylaws on January 3, June 14 and August 28, 2012. Responses to these and other comments are set forth in an OPTN/UNOS Briefing Paper concerning what is titled "Proposal to Update and Clarify Language in the DCD Model Elements."
"I’m concerned that a newly injured person, who’s already in shock and grief from a new injury ..., could get the message that their organs could help other people and weigh that against their own life"
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______________________________________________________ 
"You have the power to SAVE lives." 
To register as a donor in California: 
www.donateLIFEcalifornia.org | www.doneVIDAcalifornia.org 
Outside California: 
www.organdonor.gov | www.donatelife.net


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