General Chat

Isn't this awfully sad? How much easier would the daughter's death have been to accept if the transplant could have been done for the mother?

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A mother in desperate need of a kidney transplant has been denied the organs of her dying daughter.

Laura Ashworth, 21, was unconscious for days after she suffered massive brain damage following a suspected asthma attack.

Her mother Rachel Leake, 39, who has kidney failure, was at her bedside when she died at Bradford Royal Infirmary.

But Ms Ashworth's kidneys were given to strangers despite her personal wish to help her mother.

Ms Ashworth, the mother of a two-year-old girl, was on the NHS Organ Donor Register and had told her mother she would help her if the time came - but this was never formally recorded.

Ms Leake, from Bierley, West Yorkshire, said her daughter would have been upset that she was able to help other people and not her own mother."

Ms Leake has suffered from kidney failure for seven years after developing complications from diabetes.

The Human Tissue Authority (HTA), the body responsible for implementing the consent requirements of the Human Tissue Act 2004, defended its decision to allocate Ms Ashworth's organs to strangers.

Adrian McNeil, chief executive of the HTA, said: "The central principle of matching and allocating organs from the deceased is that they are allocated to the person on the UK Transplant waiting list who is most in need and who is the best match with the donor.

"In line with this central principle, a person cannot choose to whom their organ can be given when they die; nor can their family.
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Lizx

Very sad

Oh Liz that's awful. Trouble is, as it wasn't formally recorded, there's not a lot that could have been done by the authority concerned.

My heart goes out to the family, though.
x

That's how I felt, what a shame there wasn't a written note about it but I suppose being a sudden collapse there was nothing the family could do and the poor girl had never thought things would happen that way.
I feel for the family too, and if the people who received the kidneys find out somehow, they will feel bad too.
I hope the kidneys do their new job and aren't rejected, would be the worst case scenario.
Lizx

OMG

Thats about all I can think of am Gobsmacked fer once


Claire xxx

That is very sad and tragic,,,,,,, oh ,and why didnt the mother speak up at the time to be concidered,,although no 100% of a certain match,
perhaps a more urgent case was in need,,,,




But your body is yours till the day to die only,then you dont own it neither does anyone else,

It is really sad - yet again the 'system' wins.
Much as our own mortality is not easy to think about, maybe when we do make decisions like this we should write them down, and encourage our loved ones to do the same.
It would be heartbreaking to be unable to carry out the wishes of a partner or child, because we had not got the right piece of paper.

Was disgusted when I read this last night. The poor girl had wanted her mother to have her kidneys in the event of anything happening to her. She left a young child, so how do you explain to that poor child if anything happens to the grandmother, that she could have been saved, but the poweres that be said no.

My heart goes out to everyone who is waiting for a transplant of any kind, but surely something could have been done to help this poor woman. She sat with her daughter watching her die, and then had to suffer the refusal of her daughters donation.

Time the powers that be rethought their decisionsn

Sorry just my opinion, and no offence meant to anyone.

I too was shocked when I read about this and my thoughts go out to the family.

Then I tried to see both sides ( my OH goes mad when I do this ) and I can in a small way see why transplants have to go to those most needy........Lets say it went to the Mother and that she wasn't as needy ( at deaths door as someone else ) and the person who was in dire need then died, how could the powers that be justify it then ?

Just a thought so please no-one jump on me from a great height, as I said trying to see both sides

But my heart goes to the daughter and the Mother and as a daughter and a mother myself I do think that family comes first

I suppose the nicest thing about the mother having a kidney would have been the thought of the daughter still being with the family in a way. But then if it had been rejected later, it would have been difficult too, so I suppose in hindsight was a very difficult decision and as Jessie says, the other people were more needy.
Lizx

kay is right:

"But your body is yours till the day to die only,then you dont own it neither does anyone else"

Even if the daughter had put it in writing -- by the time the issue arose, she was in fact dead, just having her body kept going on life support.

And you can't will your body or body parts to anyone.

There are many good reasons for this very old general rule, just like the rule that you can't sell a kidney. While you're alive, you may donate, but that's all.

It would be horrible if our organ transplant systems became corrupted by money. If you could will your kidney to a family member, what if that family member decided to sell it? what if you could will it to a non-family member (for a fee to be paid to your next of kin, maybe), who decided not to wait for your natural death?

All of those problems could arise if people, or their next of kin, had control over what happened to the body parts of deceased people.

Some flexibility is coming for living-donor transplants, where people with non-compatible family members can trade with other families. Anybody see this one?

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20080408/
six_kidneys_080608/20080408?hub=Health

"BALTIMORE -- Johns Hopkins surgeons transplanted a half-dozen kidneys simultaneously, an operation believed to be the first of its kind, hospital officials announced Tuesday.

The transplants conducted Saturday were made possible when a so-called altruistic donor, who was willing to donate to anyone, was found to be a match for one of six transplant candidates. Five of the candidates had a willing donor whose kidney was incompatible with their particular friend or relative, but a match for another of the six."


The situation in the story in this thread is horribly sad, but when there is such a shortage of deceased donors, such stories will always be with us.

Everybody signed their donor cards?

this really is a sad tale but at least it is bringing the donation crisis to everybodys attention again. What I find strange is that whilst the daughter was alive if she were fit enough then she could have donated her 'spare' organs to her mum if they were a match but yet once she has died the legal system just takes over.

I think what that indicates is that the mother's situation was not dire. The daughter "had told her mother she would help her if the time came" -- which I took to mean "if the time came that the mother needed her kidney to survive".

There were then many people on the waiting lists, when the daughter died, whose situations were dire. The kidney would have helped the mother, certainly; but it would save someone else's life.