Monday 13 June 2011

Organ Donor

I have just filled in a form for a new driving licence and ticked the box asking whether I would be willing to donate my organs in event of ending up in a bloody mess on the road.  Coincidentally my boys came home for the weekend and proudly displayed their Donor Cards which they had signed up for at school.  Now as I believe in the principal of 'Do unto others as you would be done by' it follows that it would be rank hypocrisy not to sign up as a potential donor unless I had some religious belief which precluded me accepting a organ in the event of my kidney or whatever packing up.

I have not though signed up as donor, nor have my sons, to allow National Health hospitals to dish out our freely given organs to foreigners.  According to the Sunday Times Kings College Hospital in London has been paid over  £1.0 million for carrying out some 22 liver transplants on foreigners over the last two years.  Now there are two points here. First the Kings College Hospital seems to be undercharging by a ridiculous amount. I would suggest rich foreigners in need of a liver would happily cough up ten times the paltry £50,0000 the hospital is currently charging. The second point is that we offer our organs free. If the certain NHS hospitals want to make money out of them then they should pay the heirs of the recently dead person for the privilege.  Why shouldn't someones grieving wife or family not receive a cheque if the beneficiary is not a Brit but a fat Arab? 

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