When health care priorities are unclear: Do we obtain organs or try to save lives?

摘要

To the Editor, In the comment entitled "When health care priorities are unclear: do we obtain organs or try to save lives?," the authors (curiously none of them is a medical doctor) review a set of ethical principles, which should be guiding the practice of donation after death has been determined by circulatory criteria in persons whose death has occurred after an unexpected out-of-hospital cardiac arrest.Currently also implemented in France, Italy, and the Netherlands among others, Spain was one of the countries first developing protocols allowing organ donation to occur from persons whose death had resulted from an unexpected cardiac arrest, this taking place either in the out-of-hospital setting or within the hospital. Starting in the 90s, these protocols have allowed the transplantation of 1361 kidneys, 133 livers, and 52 lungs in our country, with excellent results in the case of kidney transplants and promising outcomes in liver and lung transplantation. Over the years, the programs have been extending throughout the country with an excellent acceptance by the entire professional network and an adequate public perception, as made evident by the high consent rate in this type of donation. Its practice has been based on a specific legislation in place since 1999 and on national consensus documents released in 1996 and recently in 2012 and developed with the active participation of all relevant national professional societies in the field of emergency and intensive care.