Patient Safety, Risk Management & Performance Improvements for Healthcare Professionals.

Organ supply for transplantation lags significantly behind demand and the situation unfortunately will continue to worsen. The number of individuals who die while on organ transplant waiting lists is high and rising. Demand will continue to increase exponentially as advancing medical research improves transplant outcomes and increasingly sicker patients become candidates. At the same time, we would hope that our public health efforts will be effective, which will, if successful, decrease the supply of donor organs—highway safety, decrease in alcohol use while driving, early treatment of hypertension, decrease in street violence, etc. Although supply will never meet demand, we could come closer since we are currently far from maximizing the use of the potential donor organs available today.

Organ donor cards will be distributed this year with all Federal income tax refunds as the result of a bill signed into law in August, 1996. Any efforts to increase organ availability are to be applauded, however, given our current organ procurement system, the effectiveness of this approach remains to be seen. We continue to operate under an organ donation system where people may legally donate their organs, to be harvested after their death, yet organs and tissue are not harvested without the consent of the decedent’s family. This significant obstacle to organ procurement was noted in the Prefatory Note to the 1987 UAGA which quoted a 1985 Gallup Poll finding that nearly half of the people who were “very likely” to donate their organs had never told their families of their desire. This “promise [of] the gift of life to another human being,” as Representative Camp called it, too often remains a promise unfulfilled.

It is incumbent on all emergency department physicians to be aware of organ and tissue donation laws and policies, and see to it that the families of all potential donors have the opportunity to donate the “gift of life.” It is never easy talking to the family at the height of their grief, but we must all take the time to compassionately offer the relatives the opportunity to donate the organs and tissue of their loved one. Concerns of liability related to involvement in organ procurement should never be an issue in that all states have adopted a version of the UAGA, which confers immunity so long as the individual acts in “good faith,” a term that is interpreted, as the above cases illustrated, extremely liberally.

United Network for Organ Sharing, U.S. Waiting List Statistics (August 7, 1996).
Id.
Id.
United Network for Organ Sharing, Facts and Statistics (January 13, 1997).
The Gallup Organization, Inc., The American Public’s Attitudes Toward Organ Donation and Transplantation. § I tbl. 1 (1993).
Sheldon F. Kurtz and Michael J. Saks, The Transplant Paradox: Overwhelming Public Support for Organ Donation vs. Under-Supply of Organs: The Iowa Organ Procurement Study, 21 J. Corp. L. 767 (1996).
Id. at 768.
Juliana S. Moore, Comment, The Gift of Life: New Laws, Old dilemmas, and the Future of Organ Procurement, 21 Akron Law Review 443, at 460 (1988).
The English common law was adopted by American courts (incorporation).
Georgia Lions Eye Bank, Inc, et al. v. Lavant, 335 S.E.2d 127,128 (quoting 2 W. Blackstone, Commentaries 429 (T. Cooley, ed. 1899)).
22A Am Jur 2d §2.
Id.
22A Am Jur 2d §3.
Uniform Anatomical Gift Act (1968) [hereinafter 1968 Act].
The best example is the universal adoption of the Uniform Commercial Code (“UCC”) which allows reliability in business transactions across state lines.
1968 Act, at Refs. 3.
Moore, supra note 8, at 444 (quoting Kramer, The Professional’s Role in Helping the Client and the Family Deal with Death, 1986 N.Y.St.B.J.22).
Daphne D. Sipes, Legislative Update on the State Adoption of the 1987 Revision to the Uniform Anatomical Gift Act of 1968, 4 BYU J. Pul.L. 395 (1990).
1968 Act Refs. 3.
Moore, supra note 8, at 445.
1968 Act § 2.
Id.
Id.
1968 Act §4.
Id.
Id. Note: this was drafted prior to the widespread availability of fax machines.
1968 Act §6.
Id.
1968 Act §7.
Id.
Id.
Id.
See generally Prottas, The Rules for Asking and Answering: The Role of Law in Organ Donation, 63 U.Det.L.Rev 183 (1985).
Evans Overcase, et al., Problems in the Identification of Potential Organ Donors, 351 J.A.M.A. 1559, 1561 (1984).
Moore, supra note 8, at 447.
Wayne L. Anderson and Janolyn D. Copeland, Legal Intricacies of Organ Transplantation: Regulations and Liability, 50 J.Mo.B. 139, 141 (1994).
Uniform Anatomical Gift Act (1987) [hereinafter 1987 Act].
Id.
Kurtz, supra note 6, at 775.
1987 Act §2(h).
Sipes, supra note 18, at 404.
1987 Act §4.
Id.
1987 Act §5.
1987 Act §9.
See comment to 1987 Act §9.
National Organ Transplant of 1984, 42 U.S.C. § 274e.
Sipes, supra note 18, at 426.
Id. at 433.
Uniform Determination of Death Act (1980).
MCLA 333.1033 §3(1).
Id.
See e.g. MCLA 333.10202.
Id.
Sipes, supra note 18, at l.
Supra, note 47.
Kurtz, supra note 6, at 775.
42 U.S.C.A. § 1320b-8(a)(1)(A) (1996 Supp.).
Moore, supra note 8, at 464.
Id.
Kurtz, supra note 6, at 778.
Id.
Id.
U.S. Const. Amend. V.
Kurtz, supra note 6, at 791 n.6.
See e.g. Wolfgang Holzgreve et al., Kidney Transplantation from Anencephalic Donors, 316 New Eng. J. Med. 1969 (1987).
519 N.Y.S.2d 928 (1987).
519 N.Y.S.2d 928, 930 (quoting Black’s Law Dictionary 623 [5th ed 1979]).
335 S.E.2d 127 (Ga. 1985).
335 S.E.2d 127, 128.
.335 S.E.2d 127, 128.
335 S.E.2d 127, 129 (quoting Abel v. State, 13 S.E.2d 507 (1941)).
335 S.E.2d 127, 128.
335 S.E.2d 127, 128.
Case No. CV 528814.
1990 WL 121138 (Tenn.App.), not reported in S.W.2d.
526 N.W.2d 15 (Mich App).
MCL 333.19191 et seq.
N.Y. Times, February 2, 1997, at 13.
Report of the Task Force on Organ Transplantation pursuant to the 1984 National Organ Transplant Act — P.L. 98-507 — “Organ Transplantation: Issues and Recommendations” (April 1986).
.N.Y. Times, February 2, 1997, at 13.