Elective ventilation of potential organ donors

BMJ 1995;311:950 (7 October)

Letters

Elective ventilation of potential organ donors

EDITOR,--Elective ventilation of deeply comatose patients closeto death in order to preserve their organs for transplantationis in breach of the common law requirement that medical treatmentbe directed to the patient's benefit. There is no implication,however, that elective ventilation is harmful to the patient.The legal issue is purely that of the intention of the medicalintervention.

This law aims to protect the patient's best interests. Contraryto the point made by Alex manara and Claire Jewkes, however,the medical community and society have already accepted exemptionsto this law.¹ For example, immune deficiency and leukaemia inchildren are commonly treated by bone marrow transplants fromsibling donors. The legal principles involved in bone marrowdonation by legally incompetent minors seem identical with thoseinvolved in elective ventilation, while the ethical problemsseem more difficult. This clinical practice, however, has beenwidely accepted for decades both in . . . [Full text of this article]