For us second years - we've just had a lecture on the difficult topic of organ donations. I won't review what was taught since, that's for class! - but what I found interesting was the commentary on organ trafficking. The commodification of the human body - as if commercialization will give mutually beneficial practice to the seller and the buyer. Politics and policy aside, if it worked, that would be great wouldn't it? A person who desperately needs an organ gets one. That's your relative, your father/mother/son/daughter and so on. And, the seller could use the money to get out of debt and poverty right? You know - pull up their bootstraps and live well? Well, turns out - evidence overwhelmingly has shown that this isn't the case. It's like the classic case of lottery winners, but much much worse. Most, if not all, actually fall back deep into poverty and they fail in pushing past the inequity and inequality they've been dealt with since birth. Usually, they turn out to be far worse since, the lack of a kidney for example, impede their previous capacity to actually perform manual labour. So - it's an overwhelmingly win-lose situation. Of course, that's IF they get paid. We're not talking about tens of thousands of dollars/euros either. It's much much less. And lest we forget - since we always seem to presume this is something beyond us in "developing" countries - some estimate 20% "anonymous donors" for organs like kidneys that frequent high tertiary care hospitals like the ones in Dublin, London, NYC, Toronto, etc. These organs are "processed" by third parties and moved around. Plus, it's worthwhile asking, who are the ones buying these organs in the first place? Some work by anthropologist and fearless human being extraordinaire Nancy Scheper-Hughes has implicated transplant surgeons and the ethics institution knowing about these "anonymous donor" organs. It is implied that we turn a blind eye. True or not - it's worth pondering as medical students the case of this global problem - both for the patients who visit us in need of an organ - and the ones who desperately might end up giving one. Ethics. Good start to the year eh? You can search some of Dr. Scheper-Hughes work and her push in conjunction with the WHO on Organ trafficking and medical tourism. Sang Ik Song is a second year medical student at UL GEMs.
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CaesuraRotating views on various subjects concerning health (in)equity Health Equity NutSome streams of consciousness on the subjects of the tragic and the mundane. Archives
February 2021
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