Quote:
Originally posted by WillowIX:
I don't belive any government have the possibility to encourage more people to be donors. I believe it is up to the hospitals to do so, the experts that is. Most people have strange notions about what doctors/scientists can and can't do today with donated organs/blood. I believe we need to get rid of these myths before we see a rise in donors.
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Yes I agree. There's a lot of fear and misconception about being a donor. For instance, when I was in high school and we were all getting our licences, a lot of my friends deliberately indicated that they didn't want to be donors on their licences because they believed that if ambulance workers and surgeons saw that, they wouldn't try as hard to save them if they were in an accident.
However I think that governments do have a role to play - advertising and campaigns targeted at dispelling myths and increasing knowledge. Many of our hospitals in Australia are public anyway, so their involvement is governmental. I also think that the government has a responsibility to its citizens - maximising the number of organ donors is fulfilling that responsibility IMHO. I also actually like the Spanish model of an opt-out system. I think, like with most things, a lot of people in an opt-in system who are not donors aren't because of any principled reasons, more ignorance or apathy - so they don't really care if their organs are used, they just can't be bothered to make sure they are. In an opt-out system those people who are too apathetic to change their preference would automatically be donors, and it wouldn't bother them.
A comment on the poll responses thus far - it's interesting (and confusing) that 3 people have said they wouldn't be donors in the first few questions but there are no takers on the response 'no I wouldn't donate any organs ever' in the live donor section [img]graemlins/uhoh1.gif[/img] . Were those options not clear?