Posts filed under ‘Organ Donation’
Politics – Human Tissue Bill (2004)
Barcode (ID): 03D0626351 
Main Search Term and Keywords: Organ Donation
Date of Broadcast: 15th January 2004
Clip Duration: 2 min 38 seconds
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Description: Doctors leaders today said the government has wasted a perfect opportunity to help solve the chronic shortage of organ donors. More than 6000 people are waiting for transplants and the British Medical Association say the new Human Tissue Bill, in Parliament today, will do little to reduce that number. But the Bill, prompted by the Liverpool Alder Hey scandal, will make it illegal for doctors to take organs without permission.
- Fuzzy section
- Alder Hey Hospital – thousands of children organs taken without consent
- Jan Robinson, a victim of the Alder Hey scandal, may well have said yes to the use of her sons organs if asked
- Fuzzy Section due to copyright (In House of Commons – Rosie Winterton, Health Minster speaking
- Human Tissue Bill – a measure which provides a comprehensive response to a range of issues that have caused grief and distress to individual, families and communities
- Interview with Michael Wilkes (BMA Ethics Committee) is concerned the bill has missed the opportunity to address the donor shortage
- Talks about the ‘opt-out system’
- 7000 people waiting for organ
- 1990 – 30% refused consent
- 2003 – 49% refused
- In Spain, 24% refuse consent
- A 24% refusal rate in Britain would mean: 680 more kidney donors, 75 more heart transplants, 320 more liver donations
- Bill does not address the need for organs for vital medical research
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Organ Donation Laws – Cystic Fibrosis Sufferer Campaigns For Change (2004)
Barcode (ID): 03D0627769 
Main Search Term and Keywords: Organ Donation
Date of Broadcast: 22nd May 2004
Clip Duration: 1 min 50 seconds
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Description: One London mum is calling for a change in the organ donation system. Sid Folly, from Ealing, suffers from cystic fibrosis and will one day need transplant of her own. But with only 19 per cent of Londoners signed up to the organ donor resister she believes an ‘organ-opt out system’ is the way forward.
- Sid Folly has cystic fibrosis at 33 years old
- Campaigning to change the organ donor law
- Want to push for the opt out organ donation law
- Supported by the British Medical Council
- Only 50% peoples organs are used when 80% are known to want to donate
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Health – Organ Scandal (2003)
Barcode (ID): 03D0625260 
Main Search Term and Keywords: Organ Donation, Transplant Trade
Date of Broadcast: 14th October 2003
Clip Duration: 4 min 4 seconds
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Description: Channel 5 report from India where exchanging a body part for a better standard of living is a trade very many of the country’s poor are willing to make. [INCLUDES SECRET FILMING]
- 1000 people die in Britain as they need organ donors
- Many buy organs from abroad to save their own lives
- India – selling a kidney is equal to 4 years of pay
- 1 person in every family has sold an organ
- One family only received a third of what they were promised
- UK person on average will pay £30,000 for one kidney
- Now illegal however trade still flourishes
- Surgeon speaking – ‘these people are so poor why can they not sell themselves’
- Hidden camera to find a donor – fuzzy section due to copyright reason
- Effects seen in hospitals across Britain as the NHS pick up bill
- e.g. people die from infection
- Only 1 in 5 are donors in the UK
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Health – Opt-Out System For Organ Donation Rejected By MPs (2004)
Barcode (ID): 02D0508178 
Main Search Term and Keywords: Organ Donation
Date of Broadcast: 29th June 2004
Clip Duration: 2 min
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Description: Plans to introduce an opt-out system for organ donations have been resoundingly rejected by MPs. The idea was to change the law so that doctors had to right to remove anyone’s organs after their death – unless they’d actively stated beforehand they didn’t want that to happen. Liberal Democrat Evans Harris introduced the motion in the hope it would end Britain’s chronic organs shortage.
- Donor cards here to stay after MPs scrapped the ‘opt-out’ system
- 307 MPs voted against the controversial bill
- Campaigners called it a ‘necessity’
- Organ donations – 5500 need, 3000 available, 400 die every year
- Some European countries assume if a person dies, the organs are automatically donated
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Sheffield – Transplant Scandal (1999)
Barcode (ID): 03B0552480 
Main Search Term and Keywords: Organ Donation, Racism
Date of Broadcast: 7th July 1999
Clip Duration: 3 min 19 seconds
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Described by the health unions as an ‘absolute disgrace’, this clip illustates the ethics behind organ donation and how one hospital accepted kidneys on the condition that they only went to white people.
Description:
The barrage of criticism over the hospital which accepted kidneys for transplant on the condition that they only went to white people intensified today.
- Northern General Hospital, Sheffield, behind the racist organ donation retreated behind the inquiry ordered by the health secretary only issued a statement and answered no questions
- Government launched a top-level inquiry into the controversy
- Health secretary Frank Dobson said ‘if new rules were needed to keep racism out of organ transplants, then they would be introduced.’
- Patient said she would refuse a donation labelled ‘white only’
- Kings college London refuses to handle any conditions on the organs
- In donor system, fundamentally based on an altruistic gift from that patient to society as a whole
- Talks about a possible ‘opt out’ option to donation in the UK such as that in Europe
- Shows map whereby this law is in place – whereby patients are automatically donors unless they opt out – however organs are still in shortage
- Believed it would be difficult to introduce in the UK due to our culture and donors are fickle when it comes to bad publicity
India – Trade in Kidneys (1993)
Barcode (ID): 03B0122432 
Main Search Term and Keywords: Blood Plasma Trade, Transplant Trade, Organ Donation
Date of Broadcast: 1st July 1993
Clip Duration: 3 mins 19 seconds
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Good for illustrating an organ trade that is currently illegal in the UK and ethically unacceptable in the West
Description:
In India, a lucrative trade in human kidneys is flourishing. The poor are paid a small amount of money to part with their organs and aided by the medical establishment.
- 30-year-old women off to sell her kidney to wealthy businessman
- Illegal in Britain, ethically unacceptable in the West – India it is unlawful to take organs from the dead
- 70% young married women ‘line up’ to sell kidneys
- Unaware of risk of one kidney
- estimated 40% in one slum on outskirts of Madras – riddled with deceit and exploitation
- ‘Middle men’ cheating people out of their kidneys – big business
- Some doctors attempting to remove middle men and educating
- Chronic shortage of kidney dialysis machines so trade is essential
- Why should the west allow a little girl to die by imposing its moral principles about kidney transplants upon her?
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