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Reflections on Organ Transplantation in the United Kingdom

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 April 2021

Frances H. Miller
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Extract

When asked which patients receive kidney transplants in England, a social worker attached to a prestigious British teaching hospital recently told me, “Probably the undeserving.” By that she meant that trouble-making patients who lacked the self-discipline to cooperate with dialysis regimes, or who complained the loudest, were often “gotten rid of” by eliminating the need for dialyzing altogether.

Such candor was unexpected, but it points up the fact that even under Great Britain's National Health Service, where egalitarian concerns have always been paramount, criteria other than pure medical need can determine access to organ transplants. Ironically. “negative” social factors provided the key to transplant availability in the cases that the social worker described, although unconventional social factors are probably more often used in the United States to deny the benefits of transplantation to patients who do not fit the middleclass ideal.

Type
Article
Information
Law, Medicine and Healthcare , Volume 13 , Issue 1 , February 1985 , pp. 31 - 32
Copyright
© 1985 American Society of Law, Medicine & Ethics

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References

See generally Klein, R., The Politics of the National Health Service (Longman Publishers, London, Eng.) (1983).Google Scholar
See generally Aaron, H. Schwartz, W.,. The Painful Prescription: Rationing Hospital Care (The Brookings Institution, Washington, D.C.) (1984).Google Scholar
English, T. A., Selection and Procurement of Hearts for Transplantation, British Medical Journal 288: 1889 (June 23, 1984).Google ScholarPubMed
Jennett, B. Hessett, C., Brain Death in Britain as Reflected in Renal Donors, British Medical Journal 283: 359 (August 1, 1981).Google ScholarPubMed
British Ponder “Presumed Consent” for Organ Harvesting, Journal of the American Medical Association 251(12): 251 (March 23/30, 1984).Google Scholar
Id.Google Scholar
English, supra note 3.Google Scholar
See Titmuss, R.M., The Gift Relationship: From Human Blood to Social Policy (Pantheon Books, New York, N.Y.) (1971).Google Scholar
Godber, G., Striking the Balance: Therapy Prevention and Social Support, World Health Forum 3(3): 3, (1982).Google Scholar