Health
ek an Australian n transplant Another study by University of Pennsylvania discovered the less people trust medical professionals, the less likely they
are to donate. This mistrust may arise from personal experiences or misconceptions regarding how the medical community treats registered organ donors. This
was one of the largest deterrents within the USA for organ donation, driven by the unfounded belief that doctors might invest less effort in saving the lives of registered donors. However, this belief contradicts the reality: ER doctors operate independently from the Transplant Unit, and all doctors are bound by the Hippocratic Oath to prioritize saving lives. Brain death is only declared after exhausting all possible measures, which is in itself a statistical improbability as fewer than 2% of all hospital deaths are brain-deaths. Transitively, it is evident this medical distrust and lack of understanding is often clouded by irrationality and misinformation. The Religious Riddle: Disentangling the Threads of Faith Religion, a cornerstone of identity and belief, often looms as the largest barriers to organ donation within Asian communities. Interestingly though, most religious doctrines do align with the act of organ donation, portraying it as both a moral and ethical obligation. This was encapsulated when Jesus spoken in the sermon on the Mount, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Though the Golden rule is known to the West through the gospels of Matthew and Luke, this principle is both older and more universal than that – it is prominent in Buddhism, Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam, and Judaism. This rule universally requites that we accept the desires of others as if they were our own. Helping those in need is strongly emphasized in Judaism – the Hebrew word for “charity”, tzedakah, simply means “justice” and as this suggests for Jews is an essential part of living a just life. Whilst others may view charity as an act of benevolence, tzedakah is doing what is righteous, it is an ethical obligation. There is nothing new about the idea that we have a strong moral obligation to help those in need. In situations where rescue is easy, our intuitions tell us that it would be wrong not to do so. Yet we all see or read appeals to help those living in extreme poverty, or dying from illness, and nevertheless most of us fail to ‘do unto others’.
Chris Thomas, CEO of Transplant Australia
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AUGUST I 2023
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