Are some doctors too quick to declare someone dead so they
can harvest the person’s organs? Colleen Burns had been declared dead by her
doctors but just when they were about to harvest her organs, she woke up.
“Colleen Burns eerily opened her eyes and looked at the operating lights above her, shocking doctors who believed she was dead and were about to remove her organs and donate them to patients on the transplant waiting list.”An ABC’s news report on July 9, 2013, and a Syracuse Post-Standard news report on July 7, 2013, describe in detail the series of events and mistakes that were made by doctors at St. Joseph's Hospital Health Center in Syracuse, N.Y., in 2009.
The Syracuse Post-Standard just recently broke the story after it uncovered
the detailed report about the near-organ removal on a living patient from the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services.
According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services, it was exactly midnight when Colleen Burns opened her eyes and
doctors stopped getting ready to harvest her organs before it was too late.
“On 10/18 and 10/19/09, as a result of the incomplete neurological evaluation of the patient and inaccurate diagnosis of anoxic (irreversible) brain damage, physical documentation in the MR reveals Patient A [Colleen Burns] was evaluated for brain death. When she did not meet the apnea criterion in the brain death determination process, on 10/19/09, with the family requesting organ donation, plans were made to pursue DCD. (Again, this was the direct result of the inaccurate diagnosis of anoxic/irreversible brain damage.) … At 12:00 a.m. on 10/20/10, Patient A was moved to the OR suite for pursuit of DCD. However, in the OR suite Patient A opened her eyes and looked at the lights; pursuit of DCD was subsequently halted.”
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services also describes that Colleen Burns was declared brain dead even though a nurse had reported “toes curled when foot stimulated, tachycardic, hypertensive, flaring nostrils, mouthing with lips and moving tongue, breathing above the ventilator.”
Because of an incomplete neurological evaluation and
inaccurate diagnosis of irreversible brain damage, Colleen Burns was almost dissected
even though she was still alive.
Colleen Burns’ family members including her mother and her daughters
had no reason to doubt that Colleen was dead since all they had was the doctors’
announcement that Colleen was dead.
But when is a person really dead?
Colleen Burns was declared dead because of an incomplete
evaluation and diagnosis.
“Medical practice in intensive care units has moved ahead of the law and is declaring people brain dead for organ donation when they may still be legally alive, the Melbourne bioethicist Nicholas Tonti-Filippini says in a new book.”
Australia’s October 24, 2012, Victoria report
continues to provide more insights into the complicated topic of when or when
not a person might be declared dead.
“Professor James Tibbals, deputy director of intensive care and medical director of organ donation at the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne, made similar points in a controversial 2008 paper that argued the standard tests for death were neither legal nor ethical, and that most donors could not be proven to be truly dead when organs were removed.”
It appears that Professor James Tibbals has a point.
An April 2013 GodFruits report
tells the story of 21-year-old college student Sam Schmid from Arizona who also
“dumbfounded” his doctors when he woke up just before being readied to be an
organ donor.
As in Colleen Burns case, Sam Schmid was also declared brain
dead.
Are some doctors too quick to declare someone dead so they
can harvest the person’s organs?
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