Saturday 2 April 2011

Organ donation

There's a new girl at work whose sister has had a heart defect from the moment she was born. She's now 15 and last Sunday she got a new heart. Everything seems to be going well so far, I just hope her body accepts the heart. I'm happy she got a new heart, and I'm glad the poor person that died had decided to be an organ donor, or that the people closest to him/her decided to donate the organs.


In Norway we don't have a donor register, which is just ridiculous to be honest. What we have to do if we want to be organ donors is to get a donor card, which we can get at pharmacies and hospitals, or print off of the internet, but none of these are "proper" laminated or anything it's just a piece of paper, so if we have them for a while (as of course everyone hopes they will) they will get worn out, depending on where we keep them. I keep mine in my purse. We also of course have to let our next of kin know so that they can tell the doctors if something happens.


On the back of it we have to write with capital letters our name, the name and contact information of two of our next of kin and then we have to date and sign it. So all the information on it is handwritten.


When I lived in England I noticed that they could actually choose which organs they want to donate and not. Here it's all of them, which is fine, it's not like I'll need any of them after I'm gone anyway.


I think that everyone as soon as they're born should kind of automatically get on an organ donor list, then opt out of it if they decide for some reason they don't want to be one. That way, if some unfortunate accident does happen, at least the person that dies can help someone else. Just think about all the people that might have been alive today if they had gotten a new organ.


Nobody can do everything, but everyone can do something.


My donor card

1 comment:

Leslie said...

My oldest daughter and I are Organ donors. My husband however is not because he is affraid that his life would become less important then his organs. I love the idea that I will be helping someone in need!
Have a great weekend

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