Organ Donation becomes Opt Out from June

Meh. I'll be dead and not using them anyhow.

Good luck getting any use out of the liver though.

Iirc if family members object that tends to block it regardless of the deceased's wishes.

It's a positive change. Many regulars here will know my own feelings towards organ donation. My family have been through the donation process twice and if the opportunity presented itself again?

We'd do it again. Not just me, but my 6 surviving siblings and their families would too.

The process itself has changed so much for the better since my 1st interaction with donation and the recent donation we had in 2023 was a far better process. The creation of ODTI Ireland and changes such as appointing a liaison to the donor family make a tough process, a little gentler.

One thing to remember is that the capacity of the transplant system in Ireland has a limit 300 +/- 25 operations a year. The likelihood of Ireland becoming a hotbed of Judge Dredd MegaCity One style Resyk is a while off yet 😉

Edit

I went back over a few of my previous posts on Organ Donation and whilst I know it's a bit self indulgent. Here's one from 2013, where I hoped for an opt-out system.

And another from last year where I make a Judge Dredd joke 🫤 So I suppose I am at least helping out with Resyk on the joke front 😁

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121821781/#Comment_121821781

Good move. Waiting for the "you will own no organs and be happy" brigade.

Not sure from the heading whether the law will trump the wishes of the family or not, but hopefully it does.

If somebody is so unbothered by organ donation that they don't exercise their choice toopt out, or even make some kind of statement at some point that suggests they might have been against organ donation, then why should we really pay too much heed to what their family say?

I would not want the state to be fighting families who wish to keep a deceased loved one intact - hopefully the change in legislation results in an abundance of organ donors.

I think it's a good idea in general but they should provide only very limited information about the donor to the recipient. I could see fallout if someone of X religion/race got organs from someone of Y religion/race, even though lives would be saved sometimes people have odd principles.

If it’s written in law, then it will undoubtedly trump the family’s wishes - the family being consulted does not mean that the family’s wishes will be fulfilled if the relevant State bodies are compelled to act in accordance with the law. The family being consulted is ultimately a meaningless gesture intended to give the family some meaning in the event of their relatives records being assessed for donation - I don’t expect the State would waste public funds on the retrieval of non-viable organs and in such cases will honour the family’s wishes, albeit by a default. Advance healthcare directives function in exactly the same manner.

The relevant legislation is here for anyone who wishes to read it -

https://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/2024/act/5/enacted/en/html

Personally, I’m extremely uncomfortable with the idea of an assumed opt-in in relation to organ donation. It’s the assumed opt-in part that troubles me, because while I personally regard organ donation as a noble gesture and a moral obligation for me personally, I find the idea of it being taken as a given… assumption is the wrong word when it has already been recorded that the person is an organ donor, then they’re not assuming anything, they’re taking it as a given, ethically questionable.

I know it’s soon to be commenced, but I think the Government have taken the wrong approach on this one, and turned what should be a moral imperative for the individual into a political point score, and that hasn’t been going so well for them recently, so I do expect that when it is nothing more than a box ticking exercise, people who were already uncertain will default to a hard no, in view of the idea that the State appears to be doing an end-run around their agency and a persons right to self-determination (I’m not suggesting that’s what it is, I’m saying that’s what it looks like). I expect the fearmongering to begin in full force as the next hot-button issue.

In my view, it’s a lazy effort by Government to address what is a constant issue, where the appropriate course of action to address the issue (and I hope it is done in tandem, that it isn’t just wishful thinking on my part), would be a public campaign to promote organ donation for its own sake. I am aware that they don’t need to promote organ donation now, and that they wouldn’t be able to source organs to fulfil requirements if it was left to the individual’s choice, as it has been, but to remove that choice by recording people as donors by default? In my view it devalues the obligation on the State to uphold a person’s right to dignity to remove what is such a fundamental decision, in an attempt to provide for the needs of the many.

Why would anyone want to opt out?

I will be dead so they can cut me up and take whatever they want out if its any good to someone who needs it.

I had a hip replaced some time back and was asked by Cappagh Hospital would i like to donate my old hip bone to their bone clinic which I thought would be given to students to smash up for a class study. I agreed immediatley as it was no use to me as I had decided i was not going to bring it down to the pub for a laugh with the lads. The medic told me that if I passed several medical tests this bone would be used for bone rebuilding in a case where it was needed, ie in an accident etc. Months later one morning I got a lovely hand written letter on official Cappagh Hospital paper from a surgeon thanking me for donating my hip bone as it was now ready to be used in an a bone rebuilding operation on a patient .